So you have that idea for an iPhone application, now what? Well if you are developer, I would suggest checking out the iPhone Dev Center and start building it, but if you are a non-geek, well where does that leave you…it’s time to outsource.
Functional Requirement Document
A functional requirements document is a document that defines a list of inputs, outputs, and behaviors of a program. Now there are books written specifically on this topic, so rather then bore you to death about this process, I posted an example below using the weather app to help you get an idea of what you should be listing out to help with the function, usability, and use cases.
Now building any project that you outsource either to a firm, freelancer, or some person half way around the world, you need to layout a game plan. To get you moving in the right direction, start to think of some of the functions you will want your application to accomplish and list them out as a task. Also list out some of the use cases, like validation such as what is a zipcode (ie. 5 digital numeric number which references a specific cit/state in the USA) as well as some edge cases such as do you want to support world users (ie. What’s the weather in Akihabara, Japan?)
So to help with you wanting to build your own app, let’s take a look at the current weather app. I started to list out some of the common tasks this app accomplishes as well as some uses cases. Now FRD can become a heavy undertaking, so keep it simple and direct to help clarifying what you are imagine the application does or displays and list in this document. Remember this document is suppose to help bridge the gap of communication between you and the person/team/whoever building the iPhone App.
Display Weather Page
- Display City Name
- Display Current Temp
- Display Current High and Low Temp
- Display a picture showing the type of weather (ie. Rain, Sun, etc.)
- Display the current day (ie. Wednesday) and the next 5 days
- Display the high and low for each day listed
- Display a link to configure page, when clicked the user processed to the configure page
- Display a link to Yahoo weather, which opens Yahoo Weather in safari for the current city
- Allow sliding between different cities
- Display the number of cities as a series of dots, highlighting the current city being displayed as list
Configure Page
- List Cities that were added to display weather
- Allow user to remove a city listed individually
- Allow for adding a new City
- Button (F to C) which changes the temperature from fahrenheit to Celsius
- Allow user to return to displaying weather
Add City Page
- Allow user to type in city name or zipcode
- Display a list of validate city names based on user input
- Allow user to select city to be added to display weather list
- Allow user to clear city input box
- Allow user to cancel inputing a city name
Okay, so that was a quick FRD for the weather app. Now hopefully that hasn’t scared you away from building your idea. You just want to lay the ground work for your idea so that when you do work with a developer you can both be on the same page. Another way to help improve this list is to build it, visual. Complimenting the FRD should be some wireframes.
WireFrames
Wireframes are a visual model of the application. One way to get your point across of what your application does or looks like is to create a simple mockup of each screen. If you are a designer, you may just want to download a iPhone GUI and create all of your application pages. Once this is done, you can easily hire a developer to go and build the code around your design. This also fills in those gaps like, what happens if user…. or how do you get to this page.
Outsourcing
I am just posted a list of companies that I have found that do iPhone development. I do not endorse any of these companies, just wanted to help anyone with an idea get it built.
List of Companies you may want to contact
For those of you who may not have the money to fund build an iphone app. Why not enter a contest with your idea and try and get it built and get 25% of the cut!
App Incubator
I posted a tweet looking for an iPhone app developer for a project I am doing and was contacted by Dave (@42DOH). The company (I am guessing he works for) is medlmobile who operatesAppIncubator.
It’s a place for crowd-sourcing iPhone applications where you submit your idea and if it’s good enough, the guys at Medlmobile will develop the iPhone app. So start submitting your idea to get a chance at have your idea become an iPhone app and get paid 25%! Not a bad way to make money just by signing up and submitting your idea. A great alternative for those entrepreneurs who aren’t developers or have a large bank roll. So get out there and start building your iPhone App!
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