By Emily Cootes and Tony Perry, Precedent Cardiff

Welcome to our quick-fire guide to creative success!

Do you watch The Apprentice? If you’re anything like us lot, you probably sit in front of your TV every week thinking: ‘I could do this so much better’. Well at Precedent’s recent annual forum, it was time to put our skills to the test and prove it!

As avid Apprentice fans and inspired by some of this series’ digital tasks, our commercial director, Mark Sherwin, challenged us to create a web app in just 24 hours: 24 long hours, 2 pitches and many beers later, we had the results.

Our chairman Paul Hoskins and board advisor Phil Jones picked the winners which ranged from an Olympic torch ‘bumping’ app, the crowd-sourcing ‘Social Eyes’ student safety app through to ‘NatNav’, a social wildlife navigator tool (keep your eyes peeled – it could be coming to a woodland near you!).

Now unlike the ‘real’ apprentices, our expert development team weren’t primed to work through the night building each of the 8 app concepts we’d prepared, so we focussed on creating full blueprints for each app; everything from user journey flows and paper prototypes, through to full designs, costing models and business cases for investment.

So, for those of you who are considering creating an app to help support your business, build your brand or engage your users, here’s our step-by-step guide to create your blueprint in quick-time:

HOURS 1 – 6

Brainstorm ideas
Find a quiet spot, discuss your target audience, and explore some key questions:

• What’s the purpose and positioning of the app (e.g. does it push or pull information? Is it simple game-based app for time-killing, or a task-based to help and support?)
• How and when will people use it?
• Which mobile platforms should it support? (e.g. is the iPhone, Android or Blackberry the most popular phone for your target audience?)
• What’s the end goal?

#QuickTip 1: remember, this should be done quickly – don’t labour over debating or creation of ideas, and in the initial instance don’t worry about quality. Get as many ideas out as quickly as you can (try giving everyone 10 minutes and getting them to write down an idea a minute on a post-it, then review and discuss at the end).

Refine, refine and refine again
The temptation sometimes after a brainstorm is to try and amalgamate or include all the great ideas you’ve come up with into a single app. The result? An app that’s confusing, unfocussed, unfeasible to implement, or ultimately, doesn’t deliver any single thing well enough.

To tackle this, we presented our idea: firstly to another team, who gave critique and helped us identify potential refinements, and then to our first panel of dragons (otherwise known as Neil Davis, Jenni Williams and Mark Sherwin!). Having digested the feedback, we then brutally hacked away at our concept until we finally had a simple and succinct proposition.

#QuickTip 2: you don’t have to throw out all your fantastic ideas. Differentiate between core features and added value features, and then look at the longevity of the app concept itself; how can you combine core and added value features in iterative delivery phases over time to continually engage and delight your users?

HOURS 7 – 12

Plan and sketch your user journeys
Now you know who your app is for, how and when they’ll use it and the core functions of what it must do, it’s time to plan how your users will interact with it. There are three stages to this:

• Grab a free wall and create a basic flow chart which describes what they do at different stages (one stage per sheet of A4)
• For each stage, brainstorm information the user needs and tasks they will complete on post-its and prioritise into 3 categories: ‘must have’, ‘should have’, ‘could have’
• Review the combination of stages and priorities to identify critical page types, and components per page.

Once you’ve completed this, it’s time to get sketching!

#QuickTip 3:  participate and present – divide up the page types you’ve identified, and work in pairs and each sketch up 6 mini versions of the pages you’ve been allocated. Refine as you sketch and then pitch your best version (you can discuss alternatives here too) to your partner. Take the best of the solutions you’ve produced and one of you sketch a final version to discuss with the team.

HOURS 13 – 19

Create your design concept
At this point you should have a clear vision and proposition for your app: who it’s aimed at and what it must deliver. This should give you a good feel for its visual style. Discuss as a group how you feel that should be expressed, what impression you want to create and then take to your mobiles for inspiration! Create a mood board of apps that you like, compare, contrast and discuss why you like them.  Use this to create a set of design principles that will guide the concept creation.

#QuickTip 4: focus on creating a consistent experience. While the sketching process can draw on the collaborative skills of the team, the design must be elegant, refined and above all articulate a consistent and usable user journey. Make this the responsibility of a single individual – with the team reviewing and providing consolidated feedback at key points.

HOURS 19 – 24

Flesh out your business case

Look at your app as a long-term investment.  Your product life-cycle (created at refinement stage!) should help you plan the level of investment needed at each stage, against the likely return or profit you’ll expect.

#QuickTip 5: don’t forget to consider how you’ll promote the app itself – that is a significant investment (and a whole subject in itself!) and shouldn’t be underestimated.  Digital marketing will be the critical point which will take your app from zero to angry birds in a tweet.  There’s no point having a fantastic app which no-one knows about, understands how to use or wants to download.

You’re hired!

The best of our apps will soon be going into production – so watch this space!  In the meantime, if you’re looking for more inspiration, have a particular bespoke app idea in mind or are looking for digital marketing expertise, then give us a call.