making apps
Out of context: Reply #3
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- monNom3
From the bit that I know about it, (I built a minimally functional app once in android studio, as well as web apps and flex apps in the past), here's bit of advice. Especially since you are footing the bill: there's an easy way to build an app, and a hard way to build an app. If you design the app based off the standard widgets and ui for each platform, without breaking from the established norms for look/feel/function then the app can click together almost like lego blocks. As soon as you try to get clever and come up with your own new concepts for how an interaction could happen, or how the ui could be styled, you are in for a world of hurt. Your coder won't care. They get paid either way. But for you, especially as a designer used to having your vision become high-fidelity reality, you need to really curtail you expectations and rethink ideas to fit into the lowest-common denominator of the existing design system. Otherwise you'll burn up you whole budget just trying to match your design, and maybe for no real gain other than personal preference. You might consider even leaving the aesthetics for the end once you know what you've got to work with. Add a couple of cool icons and some colour within the basic ui. It's often good enough.
I'd suggest narrowing your focus to start. Either web app OR iOS OR Android. Pick the one that is most important to prove the concept and do the other stuff later/never. You'll spread yourself too thin trying to be everywhere all at once.
Also. React native and the like all appear to be bullshit. Just build a native app. They aren't that hard (when you keep to the standard components) and they actually have documentation, coders available, and expected features as standard rather than kludgey hacks.
Lastly: consider finding someone local and committed to work with or even partner with. You can't build a solid foundation with somebody doing things part time and potentially disappearing half-way through. Nobody wants to come into somebody else's rats-nest of code and start fixing things, so any savings from upwork to begin with might disappear if you need a new dev. You need a coder for the long-term.
Or watch YouTube tutorials and build it yourself. It's honestly not rocket-science. And today, even rocket science is getting manageable with the online courses available. Even if you don't do everything yourself, it's helpful to understand how the thing actually works to keep from getting taken for a ride.