S9E51
· 11:52
What's up, everybody? Welcome to the PW Podcast. We are on episode five on the series here of creating an application. In the previous episode so far, we have covered the initial idea, identifying a user, the platforms that we think we wanna build the application for. We've also created some basic views for us to look at, and we've made some choices on how we think we wanna build this application.
Peter:Now we are getting into the heart of it here. So episode five is gonna be all about starting to build that prototype version. Now it does not have to be perfect. It won't be perfect. The idea here is to get a prototype as quickly as possible underway so that you can learn what is working, what is not working, and adjust as you go rather than getting deep into the development territory of the application and the design and then discovering you've got problems.
Peter:So this is very much an extension of that idea that we spoke about back in episode three where we created those very basic outline views to give us just a a very simple feel for how it's gonna look, how the user flows are gonna work in our application. So as you start building this prototype, do not, I repeat, do not over engineer it. The likelihood is, and the best way to approach this, is that you may well end up abandoning this prototype and anything related to it, the code base, the designs, the assets, all of these things. You may abandon it all at some point. Right?
Peter:So only spend as much time on this prototype as you need to. Now how do you figure that out? Well, let me give you an example here and something to think about. For a prototype, what you wanna do is you wanna take those very basic views. So no styling.
Peter:Right? If you've got some buttons, some text fields, for example, get those on the screen. Get them working. Right? And going through maybe the flows into different screens and back again, editing, whatever the app does.
Peter:Okay? Now as you're doing that, you're gonna start to recognize, again, there may be shortfalls, things you haven't thought about back in those previous episodes, how we were saying about you may discover features that are missing, things that need to be on the screen that aren't on the screen. For example, a help screen, a setting screen. This is very much a process that is gonna follow you through the entire workflow of building this application. Do not be surprised if these things keep coming up, and you will want to iterate through each of these cycles, each of these episodes as much as you can and as much as you need to until you've nailed it and you feel like you've got it right.
Peter:Now understand this is not redundant. It may seem overkill. It is not. Okay? The idea here is you're gonna keep going through this main loop until you get it right.
Peter:And the best way you can do that is, ideally, you want a group of end users. At the very least, you want everybody on the team that's working on this and close friends or whatever it may be. Get as many people as you can working to try this prototype out. Now I say try and get end users because that is absolutely gonna be the best feedback you get. So for example, right, let's say your application is about recording data for some kind of productivity application.
Peter:Right? Something have to do with maybe monitoring projects, managing projects. So you want to try and target folks who do that work. Okay? Now that should be pretty easy because, again, you should have gone back in the first episode and identified that typical user.
Peter:Now you wanna go and try and target those people and say, hey. Look. I'm building this application. I would very much value your feedback and to help guide an application that you as the user need. Would you be interested in working with us and using some early prototypes to guide the development of the application?
Peter:You will be surprised how many people will probably turn in and say, yes. I would love to do that because there is nothing better than you find a pain point for somebody and you go to them and you say, I am creating an application to solve your pain point. Would you like to help make this better? Right? Essentially, making the pain go away for them.
Peter:Who's not gonna say yes to that? Okay? Now there's different ways of doing this. You could maybe you already know folks. That would be perfect.
Peter:Again, if you've already got a relationship with some potential customers, users, that is fantastic. Reach out to them first. Beyond that, you can also reach out, of course, on the Internet or user groups, whatever it may be. Whatever your application is designed for, go find those people. Hopefully, again, if you've done your homework in the earlier episodes, you're gonna have a pretty good idea where to find those folks.
Peter:Try and get a group of them together who can provide you closed feedback at these early stages, and you are gonna keep providing them new versions as you build this application and make it better. That is absolutely the best way to make something that folks want to use. Okay? Don't do it in a silo where you keep it some kind of super secret thing, and you're not gonna tell the world about it until it's ready to release. That only works for huge companies.
Peter:Okay? And even then, it doesn't necessarily work. At the end of the day, whatever your idea is, as I said before, you may not be the first person to have this idea. You are not giving away to competitors some massive secret. Okay?
Peter:The worst thing you can do is build an application in a silo without any feedback from those potential users, and you are just making assumptions on what you think they want as opposed to listening to them tell you what they want. That is a surefire way to go with the very wrong direction with your application. You release it to the world, and you're sitting there wondering why does nobody want this. Because you didn't bother to go and ask them and say, hey. Would you like to provide input?
Peter:Okay? I get it. Everybody's worried that someone's gonna steal their idea, but there is a fine line between putting out just enough information that you get something beneficial back and keeping those inner secrets to yourself. Okay? I get it.
Peter:Only you're gonna know where that line is, but having your potential future users is absolutely the best way to do this in my opinion. Now once you've got that group, again, you're gonna set up some different systems to provide them these builds. We will talk about that in future episodes. But you will want to be giving them ideally regular releases as you go through development, and you need to be very transparent with them. Okay?
Peter:You need to say, look. The design is not there yet. It's not gonna look very pretty, but tell them what you need from them. Okay? So if it's a form for them to fill in some fields and hit a button to store that data, tell them that.
Peter:Okay? Explain to them what you need from them, and that's the best feedback you're gonna get. You're gonna get very targeted feedback on each of the points that you ask them to focus on. Okay? So maybe you add, you know, a feature where they get notifications.
Peter:Well, ask them. Hey. Use this notifications feature. Tell me what you think of it, and provide feedback and what content you wanna see in that notification. Okay?
Peter:You may give them one thing in an early version that turns out that is not what they're interested in at all, but they want the notification with different content. That is the kind of feedback you are looking for. Okay? Now the other thing here is you've gotta be ready to accept. They may tell you something very different than what you have as your idea or what's kicking around inside your head.
Peter:Do not, number one, do not let ego get in the way. Number two, do not be offended by their feedback. Okay? They might tell you this sucks. You're gonna have to live with that.
Peter:It is much better for someone to tell you that something sucks before you release the application. And the next thing you know on whatever platform it is, they're leaving reviews saying this this suck. Right? If they tell you it sucks in a closed group, it's fantastic. You can fix the problem before it gets out to the public.
Peter:And hopefully, then by the time it gets there, people will be saying it's fantastic. Okay? So be very prepared for negative feedback. I always view the negative feedback as the most important because they're telling me the things that I've got wrong or the assumptions were wrong, and I can work with that and fix those. Okay?
Peter:It doesn't really help much if everybody just says to you, hey. Everything's perfect. Everything's wonderful. It's fantastic. Maybe it is, but there's always gonna be something wrong.
Peter:It's kind of like that. You know, you go on some website where you buy things and you see all the five star reviews and you see all the one star reviews. Right? The one stars and the five stars don't matter. What you need to care about and what I focus on is, what are the ones in the middle where folks say, this is good and this isn't so good, or this is terrible.
Peter:I'd like to see this. That is what you need in the feedback as you work through this. So I hope this has given you the next step to move forward during the development that's now started, And you will be working with your development teams, with your design teams regularly to review this feedback that you are hopefully getting and to adapt the application's features, the designs, all of those kind of things in a way that you feel comfortable with. And because users may suggest something you don't agree with. You don't have to do it.
Peter:Okay? But find a compromise. Keep adapting. Keep reviewing these cycles. Get your entire team together to look at it.
Peter:And as you're going through this, you know, you wanna be releasing as regular as possible new builds to your users. Again, it doesn't matter what the platform is. Mobile, web, whatever it is, get regular builds out there to these closed groups. That is super important. This is very much the core loop you are gonna be going through for the most part until you get to the end of the cycle of development, and you're now starting to think about preparing for release.
Peter:So, you know, this is the stuff you need to focus on. This is the the core thing that's gonna take up most of your time here. This is the bit you gotta get right. Okay? Now I'm not gonna cover in this series, like I said, you know, talking down at the code level and things like that.
Peter:That is not the goal here. Adapt what I've said here to whatever your scenario is. So that's it, folks. That's episode five. This is an absolute crucial one.
Peter:You are now in it, and you are now committing to some of those choices you've made. And more importantly, you are now presenting some of this to other folks, hopefully, that are gonna start to provide you feedback. This is where you are now very much committed to this project. This should be the most exciting part for you as you go through this. That's it.
Peter:I will talk to you in the next episode.
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