Have a brilliant idea for a web app but don’t know where to start? This guide covers essential best practices for non-technical entrepreneurs, from defining your project to wireframing, designing, and finding the right development partner. Turn your vision into reality with clear, actionable steps!
Have you ever had a brilliant idea but weren't sure how to turn it into reality with technology? You can picture it clearly and understand its potential, but you're unsure about the next steps.
While this challenge might seem daunting, taking it on could be one of your most rewarding decisions. You'll have the opportunity to bring your vision to life and build it to enable future growth. The result? A product that delights customers, generates steady revenue, and makes a meaningful impact.
This article outlines best practices for transforming your idea into a web app design ready for professional development. It's written specifically for non-technical entrepreneurs who know what they want and need guidance on achieving it.
| Best Practice | Description |
|---|---|
| Define the project | Invest time in further defining your project. This allows you to work through some of the more complex details that will set your web app apart and some of the dependencies between features. |
| Map the customer's web app experience | Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and map their journey through the web app. Ask yourself questions like, “Where do I want my customers to go next?” and “How do I want my customers to feel at this point?” |
| Create wireframes | Create a series of wireframes that provide a broad overview of the project. Consider things such as how users will flow from one area of the app to another or what kinds of designs might be effective for different parts of the web app design. |
| Experiment with designs | Overlay your wireframes with some initial branding ideas. If you are expanding an existing brand identity, consider whether any updates might be needed for this new project. Alternatively, if you’re starting from scratch, try to develop some simple primary colors and establish a logo. |
| Find a development partner | Engage an experienced development team to build your web app design. Make sure they have the technical capability to project manage the design, deliver it effectively, and provide ongoing support once the project is delivered. |
Before we discuss the best practices for web app design, it is worth spending some time defining what a Web App is and how it is more nuanced than a website.
Technically speaking, a website is any site connected to the Internet. Typically, this consists of a unique domain name (such as Catalyst Group Solutions), some text and images, and different ways to use the website.
However, things start to change when you design web-based product solutions. Many considerations occur, each changing the complexity, timelines, and development effort required.
For instance, consider the difference between a website that advertises a business and one with an online shopping portal. The advertising website is relatively simple. It will need a domain name, images advertising the business, text describing and marketing it, and a call to action.
The online shopping portal is significantly more complex. Not only does it need some advertising on a website with everything listed above, but it also needs to provide a way for visitors to interact with the website. For most shopping portals, this includes an integrated shopping cart, a way for website visitors to pay for their purchases securely, an email flow to send customers their invoices, and ways to track their purchases. More advanced shopping portals may include individual customer logins, easy ways to process returns and refunds, and custom shopping offers for different individuals.
Even though both of these examples could be considered ‘websites,’ it is clear that there are significant differences in the complexity and development effort required. These differences can significantly impact the development cost and timelines to deliver a solution that works for you.
To make it even more challenging, many technical terms are used when describing website functionality. Sometimes, it can even feel like you are speaking an entirely different language.
Meanwhile, all you want to do is bring your amazing idea to life!
To help navigate some of the terms you’ll see in this article, here’s a list of each term, along with an explanation. The impact of each one is expanded throughout the article as more web app design best practices are shared.
| Term | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Landing Page | A landing page is the one visitors see when they first arrive at a website. It's comparable to the entrance of a physical store. Most websites and web applications have a landing page, as it is the starting point for a customer's journey. |
| Customer Portal | A customer portal is a part of your website where customers can view more personalized or specific information. This might include ordering specific products or retrieving information about existing orders. It may also have advanced functionality, such as generating custom reports or analyzing a customer's information. A customer portal will almost always require a user to log in. |
| E-commerce | E-commerce is the part of your website where customers can perform purchase-related actions such as buying, refunding, and tracking orders. Most websites integrate E-commerce functionality into a customer portal to ensure a seamless customer experience. |
| Administrator Portal | When websites develop complex customer portals, they may find that they need to have a separate administrator (or admin) portal. This allows them to administer the customer portal more effectively, performing actions such as adding and removing users, adding and removing content, getting insight into customers' actions, and so on. The admin portal will typically require an entirely different login and setup process, keeping it separate from but integrated into the user portal. |
| Authentication | Websites that implement customer and admin portals typically need a way to allow people to log onto the website. The process for doing this is called authentication, allowing the web app to confirm (or authenticate) that the person logging on is who they say they are. There are many different ways of doing this. However, most websites prefer integrating with popular services such as Google and Facebook, enabling their users to use their emails and simply click ‘Login with Google’ or ‘Login with Facebook’. |
Having established that a ‘website’ can refer to various things, let’s further define a web app. Generally, a web app is an advanced version of a website that provides customers with unique, gated experiences tailored to specific products. For example, if you’ve ever used an online portal to explore a dataset or an online shopping portal with ways to mix and match orders, chances are you’ve been interacting with a web app.
Typically, a web app will contain at least three different items, each interacting with each other.
Each of these items requires some thought, and it is important to be clear about what functionality you want where. For example, if you are creating an online marketplace, then having a user portal where people can upload content would be entirely appropriate. However, if you were building the next video streaming service, you probably wouldn’t want your user portal to enable customers to upload random cat videos!
The first step in bringing your idea to life is investing time in defining what you want to achieve. While this may seem obvious, there is a skill involved in doing it effectively. Many entrepreneurs get stuck at this stage by either being too rigid in their requirements, becoming overwhelmed and abandoning their ideas, or being so vague that nearly any outcome could fulfill their stated goals. It's important to strike a balance between specificity and flexibility.
To do this, use the process outlined below.
For each step, open a notebook or spreadsheet and simply record what you are looking for. Focus on reporting the key details that really matter to you and your idea rather than trying to capture every little detail. If there are areas of technology you are unsure about, describe the outcome you would like to achieve, relying on your technology partner to fill in the rest.
Let's explore a worked example to see what this could look like in practice. In this example, an idea is proposed, each step is worked through, and statements are recorded. As this example is developed, you’ll notice specific areas where the definition is slightly vague, simulating what it might look like.
Imagine you have an incredible idea for building a next-generation online learning management system. In your head, you want to combine Artificial Intelligence, a great learning experience, and a simple way for people worldwide to build courses. In your idea, this will be a global product that everyone will use, and you’ve done some back-of-the-envelope research to ensure it will be profitable.
The first step in the process is to record your aspirations for this idea. These serve as the ‘North Star’ for your project and should capture the essence of your dream or idea.
For instance, drawing on the idea above, you might want to capture something like:
| Aspiration | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Global user base | This should be available everywhere in the world where there is internet. |
| Integrated Artificial Intelligence | AI should be integrated throughout the project as it really helps people learn. |
| Great learning experience | The learning experience must be amazing. |
Each of the aspirations in the table above represents a specific thing your project needs to achieve. Even though there are no goals or targets associated with them just yet, there are already some dependencies that your future development partner will be able to draw from.
The next step is defining the characteristics of the experience you want your customers to have when they use your product or service. You should ask yourself questions like:
Asking these questions could lead you to the following:
| Top-level customer experience definition | Description |
|---|---|
| A clean, simple way for course builders to build courses | It should be really simple and easy for a person to build a course on the platform. |
| A clean, simple way for people to take courses | When a customer takes a course, the user interface should be clean and uncluttered. |
| The system should be really fast | The system should be really fast so that people spend time learning, not waiting for screens to load. |
| Course videos should be in high-definition | Any videos uploaded to the online learning platform should be high definition. |
| All courses should be AI-searchable | All courses on the platform should be able to be added to our in-house AI platform. |
Note that even though the statements above are still aspirational, you are starting to identify some key points that you’ll be able to use later on in your project. You now know, for instance, that any user experience flow you design must be simple, and you want a way to include high-definition video.
Next, identify the critical technologies your web app design will require. Even if you are unfamiliar with the technology solutions, writing down the concept provides a useful starting point for building your idea.
Ask yourself questions like:
Looking at the requirements from the previous section, a few critical pieces of technology can already be identified. Some of them are listed below, along with a description. Note that the requirement for artificial intelligence is vague, assuming you don’t know how RAG works.
| Top-level critical technology definition | Description |
|---|---|
| A user portal for course viewers | A way for consumers of courses to view course content and interact with quizzes. |
| A user portal for course creators | A way for course creators to build courses for others to view. |
| A way for AI to store courses so that people can explore them | Some way for courses to be stored and then searched so that a chatbot can be created leveraging their information. |
| High-definition video upload capability | Would be nice to have 4k, but will accept 1080p. |
Finally, take some time to write down things that are a definite No for you. These can be almost anything related to the project.
For example, let's say you feel that Red is a terrible color for online learning. You should record that down. Or you may feel that using a certain type of AI should not be allowed - add that in.
Now that you have a clear idea of what your web app aims to accomplish, it's time to begin mapping out the customer experience. This step is really important because it allows you to align your concept with users' specific actions. And just like the first process, finding a balance between being too specific and too vague is crucial.
In this step, you should focus on answering these questions:
For many people, the best way to do this is by using block diagrams. Other people prefer to use ordered lists of steps.
To see this in action, let’s return to the example from the previous section. So far, we’ve been able to establish the following:
Let’s take the first portal and ask the question: How does a customer access the user portal? Almost immediately, you’ll start to identify some customer flows. Here’s an example of what that might look like as a list:
Here’s what that flow would look like as a diagram:
Note the balance in both these flows. There is enough detail to describe what should happen, but you’re not diving into the exact details for each step. For instance, the customer signup process will probably have 5-10 steps, ranging from verification emails to the demographic information you want to collect about your customers. This level of detail is simply not critical for your design at this stage and is something your technology partner will be able to help you define.
Repeat this process for 5-10 critical processes you want to see in your web app design.
Most entrepreneurs feel their ideas come to life during the wireframing step. At this step, the app develops an identity, converting it from a cool idea into something that looks and feels tangible.
To do this, follow the steps below.
Start by choosing one of the customer journey workflows you created in the previous section. Ideally, the first customer journey workflow you select should be simple, linear, and have a clear outcome, as this will simplify the design process. More complex workflows can be tackled later.
For instance, a great place to start is the customer signup workflow. This workflow is:
Next, create a non-graphic wireframe for each step of the workflow. Each step should be clearly labeled and contain only a series of labeled boxes. At this stage, do not add any graphics.
You can do this with a pen and paper or on an application like Canva.
For instance, here’s what a wireframe could look like for the Sign Up Workflow
Depending on your needs, you could quickly expand these pages to:
Next, start adding customer flows to your design. As you add each of the flows you created in the previous section, you should start seeing how your web app design will flow together.
For instance, a natural next step in the wireframe from above would be to define what happens when a user completes their signup process. Assuming they land in the user portal, having a wireframe for what that portal looks like would be helpful. You might have different pages in the user portal that are important to your web app design.
Each step may require a whole new wireframe, and you may need to update your customer flows based on what you see!
For many entrepreneurs and creators, this step can feel like the hardest. There are thousands of designs and templates, and each may have many elements you like and dislike.
To make it even worse, most graphic designers and development companies will say, “Give us three website designs you like, and we’ll design something for you.” Now you’re stuck spending hours looking through websites, obsessing over things that may not even matter. Suddenly, your design that felt real and tangible in the wireframing stage feels inadequate and dead.
And, by the way, why do you want to develop something that looks like everyone else's product? Isn’t that the entire point of going down the custom design route?
To avoid getting trapped in visual design purgatory, use these three principles to develop your own visual design language. You can then pass these on to your graphic designer or development partner and let them do the hard work for you:
No matter how complex, every web app is implemented in some form factor. Even though your web app’s form factor may not be unique, you must define which form factors you want to target.
For instance, have you ever attempted to use your mobile phone to browse a website that hasn’t been optimized for mobile? Can you remember how annoying it was? Buttons that didn’t show up properly or required you to pinch and zoom all over the place just to get them to work?
This is an example of what happens when the form of your design hasn’t been considered.
To avoid this outcome, invest 20-30 minutes working through the table below:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| List the devices where your user portal will be used. | Think about where you see your web app being used. Is it people on their mobile phones? Is it tablet computers and laptops? Is it all of the above? |
| List the devices where your administration portal will be used | Think about how your admin portal usage may differ from your user portal. For instance, if your admin portal contains a lot of data analytics, a desktop version may be more appropriate than a mobile version. |
| List the different ways you think people will find your landing page | Think about the different ways people will discover your landing page. For instance, if it will be primarily through social media, then a mobile version of your web app design is critical. |
Establishing how your web app functions is critical to developing your visual design language. Different color palettes and design choices can influence the effectiveness of charting, data entry, and user interface design.
Building on the work you have already done in the wireframes section, it’s time to add some of the aspirational goals you’ve previously listed.
For instance, earlier in this article, some of the aspirational goals for the project included a desire for simplicity and a global audience. Knowing this, the graphic designer will likely build designs focusing on minimalism and clear, clean color schemes. If, on the other hand, the aspirational goals included a desire for multi-cultural images, a warmer color palette with more images might be more appropriate.
As with most of this article, there is a balance between specifying every little detail versus providing enough information to get started.
Finally, invest time in writing how you want your users to feel. Use emotive words that reflect the experience you want your users to have as these will greatly impact the color scheme and design language used.
For instance, compare these two statements. Statement one: a fun, joyful app that makes users smile. Statement two: a sleek and modern app that makes users feel focused.
The color scheme from statement one will be completely different from statement two. Statement one will include bold, bright colors with quirky graphic designs. Statement two will focus on minimalistic patterns with very little extra detail. You could be talking about the exact same functionality but end up with a completely different-looking design.
The final best practice in bringing your amazing idea to life is to take all the documentation you’ve built in this article and provide it to a development partner. This lets you leverage their development expertise to convert your requirements into a fully functional product.
However, not all development companies are created equal, and it’s important to ensure you find the right company to do this with. When looking for a development partner, look for the following:
| Does for you | Description |
|---|---|
| Integrates project management | Bringing a web app to life is a complex task. Many different dependencies and approaches can be used - and you probably don’t have time to read through them. Instead, look for companies that integrate project management into everything they do. This will ensure your project is properly specified and delivered on time. |
| Integrates graphic design | Your web app design will grow, develop, and change as it is getting built. Each change needs graphic design input to ensure your web app design language is clear and consistent. To do this, choose a development partner that offers graphic design as part of their services. This will reduce the lead time on design changes and allow you to iterate on design updates faster. |
| Delivers complex designs | The complex nature of web apps means that every project is unique. Even when competing in an existing market segment, you will need focused, dedicated expertise to ensure your project thrives. To do this, choose a development partner with experience delivering complex designs. This ensures that you are working with experienced designers and engineers, giving you the best chance of succeeding. |
| Includes after-delivery support | We’ve all heard or seen that website that starts amazingly but has no support once it’s launched. More often than not, the result is a product or feature that could be great…but is not. To avoid this outcome, choose a development partner that offers support after they have delivered the project. This may be in the form of further development work, ongoing maintenance costs, and things like Real User Monitoring, Synthetic Testing, Infrastructure hosting, and more. |
The journey of bringing your amazing idea to life is simultaneously one of the most exciting, terrifying, and rewarding things you will ever do in your professional life. It’s an amazing experience to help bring something new into the world. Yet, for many entrepreneurs, it can seem like an almost impossible task, full of mystical jargon and challenging ideas.
This article demystifies the journey from ideation to project creation. It provides simple, practical examples that allow you to take your amazing idea and turn it into something that is more than sufficient to pass to a development team.
As a bonus, it provides some really helpful insight into selecting a great development partner to take you project and turn it into a product.