How to Make a Desktop Application: A Guide to Project Development

Deliverables: Project charter.

You should outline your business needs and, in case you’re developing a desktop software product, analyze the market. Then, you (alone or together with the vendor you work with) describe the functional scope of the future desktop app, including user roles, content, and permission matrix. As a result, high-level project requirements are formulated and documented along with the information and decisions on:

• App’s value or the problems it helps to solve.
• Target app audience.
• Disadvantages of similar existing solutions.
• App’s advantages over competitors (in case of a product app).
• Development risks and constraints (and ways to address them).
• Success metrics (KPIs to measure project success).
• Selected desktop platform(s) and reasons for targeting them.

ScienceSoft's tip:  Our practice has shown that the discovery phase helps avoid unnecessary expenses at the development stage by providing a foundation for budgetary and time estimations. Don't hold back in effort and time investments during this phase to prevent costly adjustments in the future.

Deliverables: Project management plan.

After you’ve outlined your desktop development scope and objectives, you need a project management plan – a document that suggests the necessary design and development efforts while considering business risks and constraints, outlined during the discovery step. All the efforts should be approximately but realistically estimated time-wise and assigned to participant roles. Once you verify this high-level plan, the project moves on to the next phase.

Deliverables: Software requirements specification, solution roadmap, quality management plan, risk management plan, change procedures, responsibility assignment matrix, final schedule (updated project management plan).

The goal of this step is to create the final documentation that thoroughly lays out the details of the future development process. The key deliverable – a software requirements specification – should contain a desktop app’s purpose, overall description, use cases for different user roles, functional and non-functional requirements, as well as key modules and their interaction in the form of an architecture diagram. The SRS also defines the technology stack (development tools, programming language, key libraries and APIs) and highlights integration details.

Moreover, this final planning step involves documenting the:

• app evolution plan,
• project quality standards and control metrics,
• ways of addressing most possible risks to the success KPIs,
• a matrix that assigns participant roles to certain team members,
• a schedule of assigned tasks,
• methods of handling changes to the schedule.

Deliverables: UX wireframes, UI mockups.

The app’s functional requirements are first translated into minimalistic wireframes that should give a crude but clear idea of how a user will interact with software. Together, the wireframes constitute a prototype of the app, which is often created with interactive digital tools Once the prototype passes user testing, it is transformed into full-color graphic interface mockups and then handed over to development.

ScienceSoft's tip: To collaboratively create striking and user-centric desktop app designs, ScienceSoft's UX and UI designers recommend using Sketch and InVision apps.

Deliverables: Desktop app, source code, user’s installation guide, system manual for administrators.

Testing is to be performed in parallel with development since code issues are cheaper and easier to fix as early as possible. If uncovered late, such issues can affect the entire code and cause significant delays in the release schedule. . If necessary, the QA and development teams can also collaborate to create a user’s installation guide and administrator’s system manual.

ScienceSoft's tip: When possible, the processes of code delivery and testing should be automated with a CI/CD pipeline. In our experience, this can speed up development by up to 20%.

Depending on whether the app is an internal solution or a commercial product, it is either deployed and integrated with the required corporate infrastructure or released to the public. The second option implies that the app has an installer and is distributed as a .exe/.pkg file on the product website or published on Windows Apps Store or Mac App Store.

If your app is published in an official web store, the store itself takes care of notifying users about updates. But for apps published on other Internet/intranet resources available through HTTP/FTP of file sharing, you’ll need a built-in app logic for an automated update check.

ScienceSoft's tip: Make sure to think of your distribution method ahead to avoid the risks of urgent and costly code changes. ScienceSoft always discusses distribution method with clients during the project planning stage.