I’ve been developing iOS & Android apps for some time now. When planning a project, I use a book that I had printed by Lulu, which basically contains 400 pages of iPhone and iPad style application templates, with a box for notes below each one. I basically draw each screen and annotate it.
This is all well and good, but obviously it only covers a very small, visual aspect of the planning process.
I’ve been looking around trying to find some form of software or web app that will basically make planning and development a bit more…organized. All I’ve come up with so far is using something like ActiveColab or ProjectPier to manage milestones and tasks, however this really only goes so far.
I was curious to see what other mobile developers were using to plan and manage their mobile projects. I’m not sure about anyone else in this area of work, but I always feel that I dont plan the projects internals well enough.
Ideally I’d like to find a mac or web based option that allows storing of project notes, maybe sketches, code snippets, links, etc. I hear that Bento may be a good option to ‘roll your own’?
Although I would be interested in something automated I have taken a fairly low tech approach so far and it meets my needs. I create a Google document describing what I want the app to do. This is just prose and does not contain any diagrams. When I am happy with that draft I go to paper to do the layout – what activity goes where. I prefer to do this on paper as at this stage there is a lot of scratching out of ideas I did not go with. Then I start coding from both of these. Once I have a first draft working I make a list of bug fixes and improvements that I can make. I bunch these into blocks for a release and once I have completed all of the items in a block – off it goes to the market. I repeat this as long as I am on the project.
I tend to add the graphics when necessary.
I have tried to use pencil to do layouts before (in a previous job I was coerced into using Balsamiq :)), but find tools like this too much work for too little payback. The effort of cludging an Activity together is a better use of my time than producing non functioning stuff.
Probably not the answer you were looking for, but my experience of tools to manage this process has been negative for over 10 years – so I am not expecting something to sweep me off my feet.
Anthony Nolan