Developing a web application is the first step to launching your new initiative and getting out there for users to find you. Our team of web app development experts at Brewer Digital have experience building complex web apps across a variety of industries, from hospitality to finance and legal services. Launching a web application is quicker, cheaper, and easier than building for mobile, and allows you to customize your user experience on a rapidly changing basis.
The Difference Between a Web Application and a Website
While both web applications and websites are found by accessing a URL in your browser, the main difference is the level of functionality. A web app has significantly more functionality than a simple website, and can be built to function similarly to a mobile application without having to jump through the same red tape of mobile app stores and update cycles.
Web Apps We Can Build
Web apps are a great development option across a variety of industries, and can easily be accessed by users via their browser. We can develop the following web applications, and more:
- Custom e-commerce apps
- User portal apps
- Point of sale apps
- Business automation apps
- Finance / trading apps
- Chatbot apps
- Subscription-based apps
We generally recommend building with Chrome and Safari audiences in mind, as those make up a vast majority of internet users. At the end of the day, getting your app in front of as many audiences as possible is the name of the game – that’s why we also offer mobile app development services so you can build for all platforms.
Choosing Between a Web App and Mobile App
Understanding your end user and their needs is the most important step when it comes to deciding whether you need a web app or a mobile app. Other factors that could influence your decision include the pace of changes in the app, the need for “offline” functionality, your budget for development, and how much you want to leverage SEO to get your app discovered.
Web apps tend to be the better option for software that will be changing rapidly, as changes are pushed live immediately without requiring approval by the app store or asking users to manually update. It’s almost much easier to leverage robust SEO with a web app, increasing your discoverability.
Mobile apps might be the better choice if your users are going to be away from the internet when they’re using the app, or if you aren’t concerned about the need for frequent changes.
If you have the budget, you may want to consider developing both application types at once – programming languages like React Native can easily share code between web and mobile apps to make it possible to develop both without duplicating effort.
Our 5-Step Web Development Process
Our web development process is very similar to our mobile development process, and follows 5 basic steps:
- Initial client meeting
The first step in launching any new project is getting together and sharing your vision with us. We want to know about your overall vision, what problem you’re looking to solve, who your target audience is, and any other information that will help us understand what you’re looking to create. - Requirements gathering and planning
Once we know what you’re looking for, we can start planning the build. We’ll figure out what requirements your app will have, what elements we need to incorporate, which other software you will need to interface with, etc. This is like the storyboarding stage of web app development. - Design work
Appearance isn’t everything, but it certainly matters. Once we know the general outline of how your app will be built, we need to put creative pen to paper to figure out the design details so our team of Denver web app developers will know not only what to build, but how it should look when it’s done. This will also help us decide what programming language would suit your project best. - Development and implementation
The step we’ve all been waiting for. Our team will get to work building your app according to the timeline that works for your unique project. Projects are typically run in two-week sprint cycles and implemented in pieces to keep everything running smoothly. - Support and maintenance
Once your web app is launched, that doesn’t mean the work is done. Maintenance is an important step to fix bugs and keep your app running smoothly and cobweb-free. If you come up with new features you’d like to add, we’ll go back to the requirements gathering stage to get those sorted out.