app system architecture design

Jyoti565

Hi,

I am looking to develop an app for mobiles. My experience lies in business functionality design and user testing but I have little experience in the technical development side. Does anyone know please if I would need to engage a system architecture designer as well as developers for a mobile app development (planning on ios 8), or can the developer do both roles (thinking of using a source like Elance for developers)? To provide context, at a simple level the app will be a type of business directory.

Thanks for your help

The Corinthian

Depends upon the complexity, functionality and robustness required by your solution.

System architects are essentially developers who have reached an advanced level of experience and specialized knowledge to the point that they're more valuable designing system architectures rather than developing. As such a very simple system could easily be designed by a developer with a few years experience with similar systems, while once you start getting towards more complex systems, you'll need to engage someone more specialized.

All I can tell of what you want to build is that it appears to be some form of n-tier solution with an app client, by the sounds of things. Unfortunately that's not enough to say whether you need to bring in an architect or not.

I would not use someone from eLance or similar for an architecture gig. As most of the more cost effective (i.e. cheap) resources are based in developing or eastern European countries, language (and sometimes culture) can often represent a serious barrier to knowledge transfer. This makes them usable if spoon fed with your requirements, but if their jobs is in essence to codify your requirements, you're just asking for a clusterfsck to happen.

Jyoti565

Thanks Corinthian for that feedback, really helpful. From an end-user experience perspective it should be relatively simple form of n-tier (i.e. free download where end-users searches for businesses under certain categories). The complexity comes with the business plan and in how I want to charge businesses to be listed in the directory.

And thanks for your thoughts on elance type agencies, I have heard similar feedback from other people - can be very hit and miss. Do you think if I engaged a local system architect to project manage developers from elance-type agency this would mitigate the risk? Working with a limited budget as no investors at this stage.....

Graham

It would be fairly unusual to come across a self-funded startup project with a limited budget that has a system architect.

Is there any particular reason you think you need one before your app has proven it has a place in the market?

Jyoti565

Hi Graham,

At a conference recently I was told by a person that owns an app development company that if I was to go the route of freelancer developers (e.g.Elance) that I would need to also engage a system architect designer separately??

But feedback on this thread indicates that an experienced developer should be sufficient......any thoughts pls?

Graham

Most startups would begin with an experienced dev unless they had very deep pockets. That said, if you're going down the elance path, it's very easy to spend a small fortune and have very little to show for it.

Do you know anyone that could personally recommend someone to help you put a spec together and perhaps work with you in a part time PM/consultancy capacity. That might reduce the chances of you getting fleeced.

You will soon discover that whatever the project and whatever the budget (no matter how unrealistic) you will always get people bidding for the work on freelance sites. Staged payments can't completely protect you either as it's not unusual to find you've paid 75% of the total project costs to discover your developer has delivered all of the easy/visible bits and then vanished.

Jyoti565

I'm generally getting negative feedback on elance and the associated risks. It looks like an experienced developer is the way forward.
I don't know anyone in the general area based in Ireland that is reliable.....Any suggestions of a good place to start looking for this type of support? thanks for your help

Graham

You can get some great developers through the freelance sites but it really is a bit of a crapshoot until you find someone good/reliable.

Have you throughout about joining some of the meetup groups for whatever technology you're thinking of using? Even if you don't meet your dream developer you'll be learning, getting known and you might get an introduction to someone.

The Corinthian

Jyoti565 wrote: »

And thanks for your thoughts on elance type agencies, I have heard similar feedback from other people - can be very hit and miss. Do you think if I engaged a local system architect to project manage developers from elance-type agency this would mitigate the risk? Working with a limited budget as no investors at this stage.....

I would not recommend outsourcing for the uninitiated unless you want to spend a good deal of time and money making mistakes and being taken for a ride before you can do it right.

Bringing in a consultant can be very expensive, btw, so look at different models of remuneration; be it financial, equity or a hybrid of the two.

You probably should consider someone with skills and experience in development, analysis and project management. As developers become more experienced many (but not all) start to branch out into the latter two fields and these will be as important to you as any kind of technical knowledge they may have. After all, a brilliant developer isn't going to be much use if they can't manage your dev team in Bangladesh, or if they can't distil your knowledge into a working specification, that can be understood by your dev team in Bangladesh (or potential investors, as specs are very important to the process of raising money).

Just a wee caveat, from the perspective of someone who does this for a living; don't waste their time. Start ups with ideas and enthusiasm are two a penny and I've lost count of how many will happily just try to get free advice from you until you put it to them that it's not actually free - then they vanish. I've lost count how many of these tyre kickers will meet you once, then send you piles of documents to review and analyse without a contract in place.

Jyoti565

@ Graham: thanks for idea of meetups. In Silicon Valley for a month so going to try and get to some over here!

@Corinthian: thanks for giving breakdown on skills and capabilities. this is really helpful in deciding which route to take and associated risks and how to mitigate. And my background is consulting, so have a deep respect for those who work as freelancers - I too have been on the other side of timewasters;)

Really appreciate both your feedback, thanks J

Jyoti565

Hi Corinthian/Graham,

I know it is a while since I used this thread but just wanted to say thanks for all your feedback on my questions in July. Based on the discussions I have decided to keep development within Ireland and am just about to start technical build.

The solution they have provided is to build a website that will then drive updates to the Android/Apple smart devices (they suggested this as the most cost effective solution that is fit-for-purpose). In addition to builid costs, they have an annual on-going fee for maintenance and update for this work. I was wondering if you could give an outline of what I should have in the contract regarding this service as they have kept it very vague. Do I need to have service level agreements about frequency of udpates (these will need to happen in real time as advertising will be coming through the website ) etc?
Also, I can't seem to get an industry price on this service to compare, I know Boards.ie is not necessarily for this service, but do you think the quote of €2.5k p/a is a fair price or should I try to find some industry comparison to have further discussions on this?

Many thanks again for all your help.

The Corinthian

Jyoti565 wrote: »

In addition to builid costs, they have an annual on-going fee for maintenance and update for this work. I was wondering if you could give an outline of what I should have in the contract regarding this service as they have kept it very vague. Do I need to have service level agreements about frequency of udpates (these will need to happen in real time as advertising will be coming through the website ) etc?
Also, I can't seem to get an industry price on this service to compare, I know Boards.ie is not necessarily for this service, but do you think the quote of €2.5k p/a is a fair price or should I try to find some industry comparison to have further discussions on this?

What exactly does that €2.5k p.a. buy you? It could well be value for money, depending upon how much work is promised. Also, do you need €2.5k p.a. worth of extra maintenance? Bugs that are found after launch should really be covered for the first few months anyway, after which I'd be worried if you're expecting €2.5k worth more of them.

I don't know / remember / can't be arsed to re-read the thread, if you're looking to publish a consumer app or something more B2B. If D2C, then the first month is the most important for marketing purposes, so you'll want all hands on deck for that. After that, what would you need to update your app for? Typically, because you update your functionality, bug fixes and, finally, SDK/regulatory updates.

Updates don't really drive installs (not very well, anyway); best they can do is squeeze a bit of ad revenue out of an app. As to SDK/regulatory updates, they happen but in most cases they won't affect you. Recently, with Android, everyone had to move from using the AdMob SDK to using the Google Play Store, but if you had no advertising in-app or didn't use AdMob, it wouldn't have affected you.

So unfortunately there's no easy answer to your question. Some SLA's need only cost a small amount, others cost a five-figure annual fee. Depends on your market, road-map and various other factors that would require in-depth analysis, which cannot realistically be done on an Internet bulletin board.

Jyoti565

Thanks for your feedback on that, I know it was a fairly opened question I had.
In a nutshell its an advertising/marketing solution, there will be ongoing offers that need to be pushed from the website to the smart devices.
I have written SLA before for website development,I haven't done an app before and I'm wondering if there is additional criteria to what would be in SLAs for website maintenance?

The Corinthian

Jyoti565 wrote: »

I have written SLA before for website development,I haven't done an app before and I'm wondering if there is additional criteria to what would be in SLAs for website maintenance?

Not really, off the top of my head, but TBH, it really depends not on it being a Web site or app, but on what is in the solution that is being maintained - a database backed website has different SLA requirements to a brochureware one, for example.

Jyoti565

It is primarily a database backed website, as in it will be a business directory site with customer review functionality etc. The promotional offers part is secondary to the primary service of a business listing directory

The Corinthian

Jyoti565 wrote: »

It is primarily a database backed website, as in it will be a business directory site with customer review functionality etc. The promotional offers part is secondary to the primary service of a business listing directory

I gathered that, and did suggest that it would likely end up being "some form of n-tier solution with an app client". As I said though, what would be needed with regards to SLA for the app really cannot be assessed here. Perhaps the simplest thing for you, might be to buy a chunk of consultancy time, in advance and at a discounted rate.