Modern Mobile Application Development in a Startup
Taubert, Tuomas (2023)
2023
Ohjelmistokehityksen maisteriohjelma - Master’s Programme in Software Development
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2023-07-13
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202307057121
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202307057121
Tiivistelmä
Mobile applications are an everyday part of our modern life, and oftentimes new mobile applications are developed by startups. Usually, startups have acutely limited resources to work with, so they need to work innovatively and fast in the difficult early stages of their journey. While the technologies and the software development methods utilized in the development of mobile applications have both been extensively studied, not as much research has been done about these topics in the startup context.
Therefore, this thesis concentrated on two major themes: the different mobile application technologies available for startups and different software development methods that startups can utilize in the development process. First, a literature review of these topics was conducted, after which the theoretical background was used to perform an action research study with a startup. During the action research, the startup developed a new version of their application with a new technology Flutter and explored different software development methods.
The results showed that a cross-platform solution like Flutter worked well for the startup in question. In addition to the cross-platform functionality enabling a single codebase, the code formatting tools and the style guide included were practical for keeping the codebase consistent and maintainable. Lastly, the developer tools and the widget-based coding style helped in code duplication and development pace, which were previously problematic for the startup. The development method was first changed from a free-form development to Kanban and later to Scrum, which was found to be the most suitable solution for this team. For each of the development methods, the startup team made changes to the model to better suit their situation, which appears to be common among startups in the literature as well.
Therefore, this thesis concentrated on two major themes: the different mobile application technologies available for startups and different software development methods that startups can utilize in the development process. First, a literature review of these topics was conducted, after which the theoretical background was used to perform an action research study with a startup. During the action research, the startup developed a new version of their application with a new technology Flutter and explored different software development methods.
The results showed that a cross-platform solution like Flutter worked well for the startup in question. In addition to the cross-platform functionality enabling a single codebase, the code formatting tools and the style guide included were practical for keeping the codebase consistent and maintainable. Lastly, the developer tools and the widget-based coding style helped in code duplication and development pace, which were previously problematic for the startup. The development method was first changed from a free-form development to Kanban and later to Scrum, which was found to be the most suitable solution for this team. For each of the development methods, the startup team made changes to the model to better suit their situation, which appears to be common among startups in the literature as well.