With a no code or low code app development platform and a touch of curiosity, you can create your own apps for free. Traditionally, building your own business software was a cumbersome and expensive undertaking. Whether you were custom coding it from scratch or hiring a development agency or freelancer to build it for you, the process was lengthy, the learning curve steep, and the project costly.
These days, with access to no code platforms, the pains of traditional engineering are eradicated. These tools enable people without coding knowledge to quickly make an app for free. In this article, we’ll look at the steps involved in the no code app creation process. From planning and ideation to the creation and deployment of your very first app, we’re going to give you the confidence and skill to create powerful software.
Planning out your free app idea
Before you can begin app design, there are some important foundational details to consider. If you’re looking to build an app that will be successful, you want to have a strong understanding of your own vision.
Does my free app solve a real problem?
Software is one of humanity’s greatest tools because it solves life’s biggest problems with an amplified level of efficiency. Every great piece of software started as a question: “How can I solve this problem?” Whether you’re building an inventory management app aimed at optimizing your business workflows or a simple quiz app to engage your community, there is a problem that needs solving at the heart of it. So ask yourself, “Will my app solve a real problem?” If the answer is yes, then you’re already well on your way.
Android apps, iOS apps, or web apps?
Next, you need to consider your app’s target audience. Is it people who work at your organization? Your e-commerce store customers? Is it a native app for iPhone users? Android users? Depending on who your target audience is and the device they’ll be accessing your software from, you’ll have some fundamental choices to make before you can begin building your free app.
Depending on your target audience and use case, you’ll need to select the appropriate no code app builder. For instance, you may have multiple Google Sheets containing sales performance data. You can make a free app that pulls the data from those sheets and creates a user-friendly app interface on top of them. Your sales team can load this free app on their mobile devices while they’re in the field—or on their laptops while in the office—and update or interact with the tool much more effectively than interacting with a spreadsheet (especially on mobile devices).
If your target audience is on the consumer end, you might consider a no code mobile app development platform that allows you to publish a native app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. If you’re looking to build apps for monetization, through in-app purchases and the like, there are backend tools specifically created for that as well. There are also many other no code platforms out there that specialize in unique use cases, such as Appy Pie for chatbots or WordPress for websites. It’s important to do your research and pick the best option for your needs before you start developing your custom app.
Creating a wireframe for your free app
Wireframing is essential in software development. Wireframing is the practice of sketching out your app’s screens and the user journey through your app before you start to build. This process can save you a lot of time in the long run.
What happens when a user clicks this button in my app? When they log in for the first time, what should they see that won’t appear the second time? What user roles do I need to assign, and what sort of access to screens and content does each role receive? Do I need every screen accessible from the main navigation, or should some screens only be accessed through the user profile? Do I want my app to send push notifications in real time? What will the user interface look like?
These are just a sample of the important questions that wireframing can answer before you start building your own app. By planning out your screens, your flows, the decisions users need to make in your app, and the ramifications of those decisions, you can start making your free app without having to go back to the drawing board over and over again.
Wireframing your app can happen on a piece of paper, in a design tool like Miro or Figma, on a whiteboard, or on the back of a napkin. It depends on the complexity of your app idea and the amount of time and thought you need to put into the planning process.
Ready to start making your first free app?
So to recap: before you start diving into your build, it’s important to consider the following:
- What problem will my free app solve?
- Who is my audience & where will my app be deployed?
- What are the screens, workflows, and user journeys in my app?
Once you’ve answered these questions and have selected a no code app maker that suits your needs, you’re about ready to build an app for free.
How to make a free app in 4 steps
Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and dive into the no code app development process—step by step.
Step 1: It all starts with your data
When making an app with a no code software development platform, keep in mind that, much like any other piece of software, your app is powered by data. Consider any app you use regularly. Does it take user inputs? Does it calculate something? Does it create list items? Does it keep track of counts? All of this is essentially data inside a data table—like a spreadsheet—being presented to you in a user-friendly, easy-to-use way.
So to that end, you should figure out where your app or business data exists—or where you want it to exist. Options can include an Excel spreadsheet, a Google Sheet, or a larger database such as Airtable or SQL. Depending on where your data exists, you’ll need to ensure your no code platform supports it. It’s important that your app can read the data from wherever it currently lives, and more importantly, it needs to be able to write back to that database as well.
For example, you may be trying to build an inventory management app. You will need to tell your app what your inventory counts currently are. That data might live in Airtable, so your app needs to be able to read that information. When inventory leaves your warehouse, you might want the app to keep track of that by reducing the ‘in stock’ inventory count, so your app needs to be able to write the new number back to your Airtable database.
Step 2: Design layouts & screens for your free app
With your data loaded, it’s time to start creating your first few app screens and adding some interactive components. This is where the wireframing preparation work you did really comes in handy. Let your wireframe act as a guide as you start adding screens and designing them for your users.
When you’re using a no code platform, you can click to add a new screen to your free app from the layout tab in the builder. One important consideration when adding a screen: which database is that screen going to draw information from? You’ll be asked to pick a data source each time you’re adding a new screen to your app.
Once you’ve added a screen, you can begin to drag and drop to add new components to that screen. Do you need a form? A multi-column content container? How about a call to action button or two? Maybe you want your users to be able to log notes on that screen or leave comments and reviews. Depending on your project, you can add as many or as few components to each screen as you need.
Designing the layouts and screens for your free app requires a great deal of thought and intentionality. These are the pages that your users will be navigating. Providing them with a clean and enjoyable experience is essential to them adopting your app and returning to use it.
Think about all of the great software you use on a daily basis, and try to extract lessons from them. Small businesses and bigger software organizations alike invest in UX (user experience), so there’s a lot to be learned from just exploring the existing apps you use through a new lens. What do they do well? What do you wish was different? How do they direct your eye to the important areas within the app? How do they keep screens clean yet comprehensive?
Step 3: Build apps with workflows & actions
While we want to cover workflows and actions as their own steps, the truth is that you might actually build some or all of these workflows simultaneously while you’re designing your layouts and screens. Steps 2 and 3 work really well together, so don’t feel that you necessarily need to do one before the other.
However you decide to approach it, one fact remains: actions and workflows turn your free app into a robust piece of software. In fact, without them, apps are generally quite static. To give you a better idea of what we mean by workflows and actions, here is a scenario to consider:
In your inventory management app, an admin user scans a barcode to increase the stock of an item. This triggers a workflow containing multiple actions where the inventory count is increased by one, an SMS message is sent to the warehouse manager, and a notification is shown to the users.
In this example, the workflow kicks off when a user interacts with your app by scanning a barcode. Three subsequent actions follow automatically. You can pre-define these workflows and the actions contained in them by navigating to the actions tab in your no code platform and creating a new workflow.
These workflows can be as simple or as complex as you need them to be. Oftentimes, your workflows might branch off in various directions, depending on various user roles, the day of the week, current inventory count, or infinite other considerations.
When you’re making an app for free, keep in mind that the various actions and workflows are what drive your app’s core functionality. Without them, apps are essentially just a collection of pretty screens. It’s these workflows that turn them into powerful tools.
Step 4: Test, publish & share your free app
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the final step: testing, publishing, and sharing your free app. While no code platforms make it easy for you to develop your app, you’re still going to want to test it rigorously before deploying it for actual use. The app testing phase ensures that all of the actions and workflows you’ve added are functioning properly. It also confirms that your app design doesn’t need tweaking and fine-tuning for a great user experience. Finally, it ensures that your app data is flowing in both directions as it should be.
It’s essential that you get your test users to follow the exact same steps you’ll want your actual users to follow. What happens if you skip a step? What happens if you double back a step? What happens if you try to do two things at once? Try to cover as many scenarios as possible so that you can be sure your users don’t run into any issues when they begin using your app.
Once your testing phase is complete and you’ve fixed any bugs, you can proceed to the final step, which is sharing your app with your users. Depending on the no code platform you’re using, this will look slightly different. Some tools might allow you to publish your app to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, while others might let you publish it to a unique URL. There might even be tools that enable you to share your app as an internal tool to be used only by the people you grant access to.
However you proceed, you can rest assured that the process is significantly easier and faster than the traditional way of making apps!
What to do next?
Once you’ve got your free app up and running, your journey doesn’t end there. As your users start interacting with your app, you’ll want to be sure to collect their feedback. This feedback is a critical part of the software development cycle. Listen to your users’ thoughts, concerns, and suggestions and use them to refine your app even further. With a no code app development platform, making changes and improvements to your app is fast and easy.
