Why is an MVP important?
There is a whole host of benefits to developing an MVP:
- Lower Cost
By focusing only on the bare minimum needed to launch your app, you can cut development costs. An MVP means you'll avoid paying for features or functionality that aren't needed or won't be in use until the final stages.
- Gather Feedback
An MVP also allows you to gather extensive user feedback. Through consistently using an app on a daily basis, users can provide relevant, honest feedback that is truly reflective of the user experience.
- Test Usability
An often-overlooked element of app creation and development is the usability of certain features and functions. Your ambitions for what your app can do might not always align with the ability of software development teams. Hence, an MVP is a great way to determine whether your vision is possible.
- No Resource Waste
Another great benefit of developing an MVP is that your company will only need to utilize a minimal amount of resources to develop and test your app in its initial stages. This frees up more team members to work on other projects or within different areas.
How To Create An MVP
Step 1: Identify Your Target User
The first thing to do before you begin developing your MVP is to identify your target user. This is a crucial stage in the process, as who they are plays a key part in the functionality that your app might need. You can do several things to identify your target user, like creating a model customer profile. This involves picturing the type of user you anticipate will use your app, and from there, determining their age, gender, education level, and environmental background. This allows you to study or survey this demographic to decide on the best app features for them.
Step 2: Determine Their Basic Journey
To decide what functionality your MVP will include, it's essential to determine the most basic journey that your customer will take when using the finished product. For example, if you aim to sell products through your app, having a store checkout will be a vital function without which your app won't work. However, multiple information pages about the history of your company could probably be left out of the MVP without a high impact on the end user. You can determine the ideal elemental journey and prioritize your MVP screens appropriately by sticking to what is absolutely necessary.
Step 3: Develop Your MVP
One of the most important steps in the design process is to develop your MVP. This will typically involve UX (or User Experience) designers working closely with developers to create a basic model of your new app, which will be based on the target user and their proposed app journey. The teams will work together to provide a generalized example of what the app could do and feel like.
Before the design and development process of the MVP begins, you must finalize your prioritization roadmap – which will act as the final confirmation of which features you want to include in your MVP, and which would still work well if left to future releases.
Step 4: Roll Out MVP For Testing
Once the team has developed your MVP, it's time to test it. While it's in the early stages, try to keep testing internal, focusing on employees or team members who understand the desired functionality to ensure the app's base level works well. From there, you can begin to roll out the testing process to customers, if suitable. This is done to try and gauge how well your app might be received when it's available for download through an app store.
Step 5: Gather User Feedback
One of the most crucial stages of MVP creation is gathering user feedback once it has been successfully rolled out into the hands of users. This gives you the chance to understand what users do and don't like about the app, alongside any functionality that isn't working optimally or as planned. By taking user feedback on board, you can grow the app to the next stage of its lifecycle positively and progressively.
Some of the best ways to gather feedback include:
- Analyzing Retention and Interaction data.
- Surveying Users.
- Directly Asking Users for Reviews.
Implementing just a few of these techniques into your feedback stage will give users the best chance to provide clarity on their experience, and let you know what to prioritize as you move away from the MVP stage and into further app development.
