The pressure of running a business can seem overwhelming at times. Being able to systemize manual, day-to-day business processes can save you and your company substantial time and money. But finding reliable technical partners is challenging and the experience can be both confusing and unproductive.
It’s not surprising, then, that no code development platforms have experienced such a meteoric adoption rate. Bubble.io is one such platform and features some of the most intuitive tools available. Here’s how you can use it to build your app quickly.
A Brief Overview of No-code Platforms and Why They Matter to You
There’s no real mystery about what Bubble.io is and what it does. It’s a platform that synthesizes development into a “visual” process rather than a “verbal” one.
Often, businesses realize that they needed an app yesterday, and then rush madly to get that app built. The outcome is never quite the ideal software development process that people imagine. Budgets are out-of-whack, priorities get jumbled up, and the finished app hardly ever matches expected outcomes.
The lucky few who understand early on that their business needs an app — and most businesses do at some point — have an easier time.
To create a level playing field, especially in the small business arena, no code platforms provide economical application development in a fraction of the time that traditional coding would take. This provides the agility and accessibility that your business needs.
Building in The Bubble
You can think of Bubble.io as a coding language (it’s not, but it helps to think of it that way) that uses a visual interface for software development. In practice, this means that you just need to know what you want your users to be able to do, and then drag-and-drop elements to accomplish that.
Before you dig in, though, you should go through some best practices to figure out what kind of app you’re building and the best way to approach it.
Why Do You Want an App?
You should have a clear goal in mind that will be accomplished by building an app. Which processes, if automated or systemized, will bring you the biggest return on investment?
Make sure you’re solving a real problem or capitalizing on realistic potential when you choose to build an app. Knowing the “why” will also give you a broad idea of the “how”, and having defined objectives is the first step.
Functionality and Features
Every application serves one or more functions. To do that, your app needs features. Therefore, the next step is to lay out what features the app should have and the functionality of those features.
This is where you can look to your competitors for guidance, especially the ones that are successfully using apps to drive their business.
Write down the features that you want your app to have, whether that’s going to be social media integration, contact forms, or anything else you can think of. Then, pare down the list to include only those things that provide real value to your business.
This stage is also for defining use cases. Where you try to imagine a user’s journey through the app and then start putting elements together in a logical order to make that journey possible.
Development
At this point in the software development process, the objectives are all established, the functionalities are mapped out and it’s time to move on to building the app. Since you’re using Bubble, this is the point where you start building the app. Using a no-code platform skips over a lot of the steps associated with traditional development, which helps to speed up delivery time substantially.
If you put enough thought into the use cases, you’ll have a good idea of what you need to build. In Bubble.io, this translates into little more than dragging and dropping elements and building out workflows. You’ll even find tutorials for common elements and how to design them.
Testing and Feedback
Again, if you were in a standard development process, this would be a period of testing, iterating, testing, iterating and testing some more. Then, you’d put the app in the hands of users and collect feedback and then go back to the cycle.
But since you’re using Bubble, you’re already well into the development process. There’s no need to go through a grueling process. The app is all but complete.
That doesn’t mean that testing is completely excluded, though. You’ll have to go through some testing and feedback to fine-tune and add features. Here again, using a no code platform gives you an advantage because any changes can be made yourself in a matter of a few hours — something that wouldn’t be possible if you were coding it all.
Launch Your App
After you’re done testing, the app will be ready to launch. Realistically, most app launches are going to have problems that aren’t accounted for in the development process. The nature of no code development makes those trivial.
Another benefit with a no-code platform is as your business changes, you can quickly modify your application to account for the new business processes.
What’s Holding You Back?
As you can see, using Bubble.io is a hassle-free way to build an app for your business. You don’t need any coding experience whatsoever; all you need is an internet connection and a browser.
If you want a successful app, you still need to adhere to some basic design principles and best practices. However, those will prove to be much less challenging and expensive than learning to code or paying for app development services. And the time your business can save having an app can translate into more opportunities to focus on other areas of your company.
Learn more about getting an app built for your business in as little as 30 days at MVP.dev!
