A 15-Step Guide on How to Build a Web App from Scratch

Quick Overview: Web applications have become an integral part of boosting business sales and productivity. However, developing these digital assets doesn’t have to be difficult. In this research-oriented guide, we have broken down the entire development process into several steps, plus some additional tips and strategies. Read till the end or skim through the content to know how to develop a functional web app from the ground up.

Between software systems and mobile apps that handle the bulk of the work, businesses are turning to web applications for their customers or internal purposes.

One key reason for this shift is that these platforms provide better access (they run on any browser), flexibility (they’re easy to manage and scale), and user experience (they offer smooth interaction across devices).

Accordingly, decision-makers are increasingly showing interest in the process of web app development. Is it a complicated process? How long does it take? What are the issues one might face? And the like.

From what we’ve learned so far by delivering web development solutions for global enterprises, starting from the early 2000s, we’re going to get into the details to help you understand the best way to create them. We'll decode the steps, talk about the resources it takes, and even dig into the probable challenges.

So, if you’ve got a killer idea, let’s transform it into a functional web app!

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Resources You Need to Develop a Web App

Building any digital product requires a wide array of technical and human resources throughout every stage of the development lifecycle. Before you start the process, here’s an extensive, detailed breakdown of all the resources you will need:

Planning and Strategy Tools

Planning, strategy, ideation, or requirement gathering – whatever you want to call this stage - needs a bunch of tools to get a solid understanding of the overall project.

• Requirement Gathering Tools - Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Confluence for documenting web app requirements and functional specifications.
• Project Management Tools - JIRA, Trello, or Asana for task management, sprint planning, and resource allocation.
• Wireframing and Prototyping Tools – Balsamiq for LowFidelity, quick Prototypes and Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch for HighFidelity, detailed mockups.

Development Team Setup and Tech Knowledge

You need the right team with individual roles who have the needed technical expertise to build a web app from start to finish.

• Front-end Developers- Skilled in modern JavaScript frameworks like React.js, Angular, or Vue.js, and CSS preprocessors.
• Back-end Developers- Proficient in serverside programming languages like Python, Java, Node.js, Ruby, or PHP, and frameworks like Django and Express.js.
• Database Engineers – Well-versed with relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL databases like MongoDB or DynamoDB.
• UI/UX Designers - Experts in creating user-friendly interfaces and responsive design patterns across devices.

Development Environment

These are the tools you must have to write and organize code.

• Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) - VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, or WebStorm.
• Version Control - Git.
• Hosting Platforms - GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

Backend and API Infrastructure

To build a robust backend architecture that can efficiently handle the business logic of your web application, the following tools and frameworks are necessary:

• Backend Frameworks - Node.js (with Express.js or Nest.js), Django, Ruby on Rails, or Spring Boot.
• API Development Tools - RESTful APIs or GraphQL.
• Cloud Functions/Serverless - AWS Lambda or Google Cloud Functions.

Hosting and Deployment Resources

Here are some of the best tools to host and deploy your web app:

• Cloud Hosting - AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Server Management - Apache or Nginx for web server configuration.
• Containerization and Orchestration - Kubernetes and Docker.

How to Create a Web Application?

Once you’ve gathered all the resources, it's time to build the product.

The next step follows a series of steps that you proceed with to stay on track. If you’re stuck at any point, connect with our web development consulting experts for more detailed insights.

Here's how the web application design and development process goes:

Discovery and Ideation Stage

New product development starts with an idea. It transforms a plan into a practical product. While going through the ideation stage, staying attentive, flexible, user-centric, and enthusiastic can help you find the best ways to build the right product.

In this stage, the developers/consultants partnered with your team create a roadmap, conduct research on that plan, and determine the platform’s major functionality.

1. Source an idea

Before deciding the best ways to create a web application, you must understand what you aspire to build and, most importantly, why. So, this stage is not just confined to planning an idea but also includes several brainstorming sessions where priority is given to the problems you’re going to solve.

Following the user problem-solving approach, you can analyze and express the flaws that the users are facing, and you can streamline functionalities to solve the issues.

2. Do a thorough market research and understand your target audience

Once you validate your idea, conducting due diligence in your market is essential. It will help you stay ahead of the competition. Research enables you to analyze and better understand user behavior, their problems, and the extent of the problem.

3. Prioritize major features and functionality in the web app

At this step, most people get carried away. But it’s better you don’t.

The amount of time it takes to build the product increases as more features are added. Also, the longer the web app takes to build, the more resentment you experience. Hold tight and pay attention to the features that are a must, the ones it should have, and it could have.

It helps you with an outline of the features that the project cannot do without them, as well as the must-haves in the long run.

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UI/UX Design Stage

Designing a web app starts with a better understanding of the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). Moreover, you get a hold of how they are related and how each can impact design choices in every stage.

4. Examine the user journey

The user journey defines the overall user interaction and behavior while navigating a web-based application. It narrates the user experience story and keeps the customer front in thinking. It is simple to comprehend the wants and difficulties that the users are facing by examining their journey. It will eventually make the development process easy.

5. Create a blueprint for the web app

Blueprinting is crucial because it helps you create an entire structure or layout of the product. As a result, it can have an interactive display.

6. Create a clickable prototype

A workable prototype can look and function like a real app by adding more functionality to the created blueprint. You can easily visualize the idea with it. By clicking on various interactive buttons, you can see what the web app looks like, and finally, you can make changes according to your requirements on the design.

7. Visual designing

Visual designing is the stage where developers focus on the aesthetics of a product to make it intuitive and unique. Here, designers and developers create a mockup and viable design with regard to the prototype developed. Also, they choose the right fonts, images, color schemes, icons, shapes, and buttons to make the web app functional.

Development Stage

The development stage is where developers write code and build an application. By choosing the right technology – framework, tools, and languages - developers create the web app architecture, database structure, API, and system integrations. Depending on the different web development tech stacks, the time to develop the product can differ.

Here are the different areas to work on in the development phase:

8. Build the front-end

Front-end is the part of an application that people see and interact with. Developers build this part utilizing various technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In addition, several popular JavaScript frameworks, like React, Angular, Vue, Next, and Svelte, are also used in the front-end development.

9. Develop the back-end

The backend is the layer where the code logic and database reside. It’s actually the server-side logic that powers your web app from “behind the scenes”. Several popular backend development frameworks like Express, Django, Ruby on Rails, Laravel, and programming languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, and more your team needs to use to create the backend.

10. Integrate the front-end and back-end APIs

Data exchange is made possible through the connection of the front-end and back-end through API integration. In order to do this, developers use tools like Fetch or Axios to expose REST or GraphQL APIs from the backend to the frontend for sending and retrieving data in between them. To secure communication, you can implement authentication tokens.

11. Create a database

Database, referred to as a server, is a place where the code is stored. The database is responsible for collecting, storing, and managing collected data and establishing a streamlined and secure connection.

In this phase, the choice is quite important. You need to work with SQL databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL if your web app has structured data and NoSQL databases like MongoDB for unstructured data. Developers then install the database, or alternatively use a cloud platform, design the schema, populate initial data, and finally connect the database to the app. Additionally, testing queries and optimizing performance are also mandatory.

Testing and QA Stage

Testing ensures that the web application operates as intended and makes improvements before it goes live.

12. Test the Web App

There’s a range of tests that you need to make sure your testers run:

• Performance testing – Running the web app under specific scenarios, such as high traffic and heavy data usage, to check its speed and reliability.
• Functional testing – Checking if the forms, buttons, and workflows of the platform are working as per the set expectations.
• Compatibility testing – Since web apps work across various devices (any device with a browser), you need to make sure yours one does so well with consistency.
• Usability testing – Ensuring the design and workflows are easy and intuitive enough to use and navigate.
• Security testing – Identifying any kind of errors, bugs, and vulnerabilities to make sure your system is safe from potential threats and attacks.

13. Make Improvements

After testing, be open to making any changes or improvements based on the issues identified during testing. This is the time to fix those bugs and fine-tune the app for better results. You can also ask the developers to add or tweak any feature if needed and conduct a thorough re-test.

Launch Stage

This is the final stage, which involves hosting and deploying your final product. Once you follow the below steps, your web app will be live and available to users.

14. Host the web app

Hosting means storing your web app in the cloud environment, which users can easily access. Developers choose an instance or container service to host the system, followed by uploading app files and configurating the environment.

Or else, you can host it on a physical or virtual server. In this case, developers need to install the required software (for example, Apache, Nginx, or Node.js), deploy the app files, and finally, configure the server and connect it to a domain.

15. Deploy the Web App

Web app deployment refers to pushing your code and database from your source control to the cloud hosting environment. Like other development processes, numerous deployment platforms are available in the market, like Ansible or Jenkins, Heroku, Azure App Service, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Chef, and Terraform. You developers are likely to use any of these tools for the final deployment.

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Important Factors to Consider While Developing a Web App

The end-to-end process of web app programming and delivery has a number of moving parts. While it sounds simple at first, executing all of them in a consistent and systematic manner is a hefty task.

To simplify this, experienced developers often follow some tried-and-true techniques that optimize the overall development lifecycle and help build a polished final product.

We're going to share some of those tips so that you can ensure your developers are following them - or at least make them aware of these strategies. The results will speak for themselves, we assure you.

1. Be Aware of Scope Creeps

Scope creeps mean you end up adding more features and implementing more changes to the project than you initially planned. You might think - what’s the harm in that? Well, not everyone can afford to throw off the budgets, timelines, and even the quality of the web app.

According to the State of Web Development report by Netlify, over 50% of projects experience scope creep. That's why try your best to stick to the original plan, even if the discovery and ideation phase takes a lot of time and carefully evaluate if new ideas are worth implementing during the development.

2. Prioritize Function over Form

Your web app should work well before it looks good. Users won’t stick around with a slow, buggy platform that takes too long to load and is not responsive enough, if it’s a treat to the eye.

Hence, before you start worrying about fancy visuals, your focus should be on getting the features and functionalities right. However, if you get the best of both worlds, that sure is a win-win situation.

3. Draft More Than One Cost Estimates

Development projects can be evolving and adaptable, especially if you’re following the Agile development methodology. This is the reason you should come up with a few options for cost contingencies, no matter how hard you try to stick with the definitive breakdown that you have set at the beginning.

Creating multiple cost estimates - like one for basic features, one for a mid-level version, and one for the complete package – is a great way to avoid bargaining or negotiating later on. You get the flexibility for cost constraints and your developers get the clarity they need for efficient planning.

Also, check out the factors and insights you need to estimate the cost of web app development.

4. Provide Ample Time for QA

Don't rush testers and Quality Analysts to greenlight the web app. Let them run all the tests and conduct quality checks on every part of the product. It requires thorough evaluation of each feature, functionality, and user interaction.

Every detail matters, from loading speed to security vulnerabilities. Skip any of those steps and you’ll lead your system to expected issues after launch. In fact, over 40% of the overall development time is dedicated to testing and QA in some projects. While this may be on the higher side, discuss it with your developers and be generous with the time they demand to give the go-ahead.

Radixweb’s Unique Take on How to Build Web Applications

The development insights we've included in the blog reflect nothing but our own experience. We have delivered over 500 web apps for our global clientele and made a solid technical foundation. You’ll see its impact in every asset that demonstrates excellence at every turn – crafted by some of the genius minds in the world of web development.

Here's how we do it:

• Total Product Ownership - You have 100% control over the project at every stage of development. From color schemes and design elements to integration and data privacy, you have the final say in how your product looks and works.
• Unparallel Scalability - We design scalable architectures aligning with your business scope to dynamically add new features, accommodate increased traffic, or even expand your service offerings.
• Long-Term Cost Savings - Our agile development approach and modular architecture ensure that you can modify the platform without investing extra time or money.
• Hassle-Free Maintenance - There will be a dedicated support team for your web app. With personalized support packages and maintenance strategies, we ensure optimal and stable performance at all times.

Now, the proof is in the pudding, right? All these words of wisdom might make you wonder whether we’ve actually put them into practice. Well, we have, as demonstrated in the following flagship case studies and success stories.

• Web App for Background Screening and Checks

We helped a background screening company optimize their operations with a custom-built web app. It has automated workflows with secure databases, integrated third-party services, and improved the user experience.

• Web App for eLearning and Remote Student Engagement

We designed and developed a fully functional online training web-based platform for users to access courses, track progress, and interact with instructors. Our focus on user-centric design helps us deliver a scalable platform that supports multiple users and interactive features.

• Web App for Digital Financial Services

This digital financial platform supports complex transactions and easy management of financial data. Using cutting-edge web technologies, we built this platform to provide an intuitive interface and durable backend.

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Start Creating Your Web App TodayAll things read and considered, do you think you’re ready to build your web application?If so, we’re here to help. We'll assemble the best web app development team for your project, consisting of consultants, product specialists, business analysts, and of course, designers and developers.All you have to do is come up with the vision, the rest we will take care of the rest. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can choose the phase you’d like us to focus on, and we’ll work closely with your team to ensure the best possible results.Let's catch up to take the leap into web app development with us!