So you’re interested in becoming a citizen developer and building apps with no-code or low-code tools? Brilliant, you’re about to start on a fun journey that will enhance both your professional and personal skills!
Becoming a citizen developer lets you solve problems by building solutions without needing to learn to code or rely on software engineers.
However, we know the path to becoming a citizen developer can feel overwhelming at times. There is a huge ecosystem out there with lots to learn. So knowing where to start can be tough–but we’ve got you covered with this beginner-friendly guide. We’ll go through the 9 steps we think will help you become a capable citizen developer. The steps are based on the journeys Starhive staff took themselves to become great citizen developers.
- Learn some software development basics
- Develop your soft skills at the same time
- Find a starting problem
- Get buy-in and feedback from your team/company
- Do your data modelling
- Choose your development platform/tools
- Build your app
- Launch and gather feedback
- Maintain your app
1. Learn some software development basics
Even though citizen developers don’t need to write code, a foundational understanding of software development concepts is helpful to ensure any apps you build work well, are relatively simple to expand and change in future, and can be created efficiently and on time.
The topics we think are very helpful are listed below and you can use YouTube, ChatGPT, or the plethora of articles on Google to learn more about each topic.
Data modelling
A data model is a visual representation of the structure of your data, and it is very helpful when it comes to building apps. All apps depend on data so you need to store that data efficiently and logically. You could store it all in one huge table like a spreadsheet, but that would lead to a lot of duplication which will be a pain to work with, be harder to change in future, and potentially cost you more in fees in whatever tool you use to store your data.
So instead, learning the basics of data modelling can be very helpful to build more efficient, easier to update apps.
You can read our guide to data modelling here to get an overview with concrete examples.
Software development lifecycle (SLDC)
The software development lifecycle is the overall process of building software, represented by different stages that take you from planning to maintaining your final software. There are different ways to do each step, but the important thing is that you do each step.
If you do a bit of planning first, there’s a higher chance your app will meet its requirements. If you test your app thoroughly, you will spend less time fixing bugs and more time helping your colleagues to adopt your app.
So it’s important to understand the different stages and make sure you go through each step. How rigorous you need to be with each step depends on the complexity of your app and how critical it is.
Read more about the software development lifecycle.
SDLC models
You’ve likely heard of things like Agile development or waterfall development. These are types of models or ways of implementing the SDLC. We recommend getting a brief overview of each so you can decide which makes the most sense for you and the apps you want to build. Each model has their pros and cons. While there are many options out there, agile, waterfall, spiral, and iterative tend to be the most common.
Learn more about different software development lifecycle models.
APIs
If APIs (application programming interfaces) are a new concept to you we highly recommend becoming familiar with them, even just the basics. APIs are used a lot in both traditional software development and no/low-code development to help connect different platforms together and transfer data between them.
In no-code tools you will be using a configuration menu, rather than code, to use the API. But you still need to understand a little bit about what makes up an API request or call.
2. Develop your soft skills at the same time
It’s easy to think that building software just requires hard technical skills but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Soft skills are critical to development, even more so if you’re a citizen developer who is more likely to be working alone and therefore need to do both the hard and soft sides of the project.
You do not need to be an expert in every skill on this list, but it’s good to identify your strengths and weaknesses and practice and develop those skills where you could stand to learn more.
Useful skills for citizen developers (and all developers) include:
- Problem-solving
- Creativity
- Stakeholder management
- Project management
- User empathy
- Openness to feedback
3. Find your starting problem to fix
Now that we’ve covered the knowledge and skills that are helpful for citizen developers it’s time to consider your first app! We recommend finding a problem at work or in your personal life that could be solved with some software. Think of areas where you’re doing a lot of manual work or where your first instinct might be to make a spreadsheet to help you.
Examples could be:
- Managing a new project
- Needing to share information regularly with colleagues
- Collecting feedback from colleagues in a more streamlined way
- Tracking some physical objects (e.g. one of our team members created a Starhive app to track her golf equipment and games!)
- Or any number of things!
We also recommend starting simple for your first no-code app. Even a simple sounding problem and solution may become complex when you actually dig into it.
Once you have a problem you want to document what the current workflow or process is. What is working and what isn’t? Who is involved? How much time is being wasted in the current situation?
Let’s take an example of sharing marketing content with the entire organisation. In the original state, employees would ask for logos, colours, images, etc., over emails, Slack and in person. This is inefficient, costing the marketing team around 30 minutes a week while also delaying the people waiting for the content.
Then, you want to think about the end result. What would an ideal solution look like? How can you break that down into smaller requirements?
In the marketing content example, the ideal situation could look like a central place where everyone can go and access the content they need. They need a way to search content by name, type of content, and maybe some other tags. Then they need a way to download the content. The marketing team also need a way to add new content and apply the correct tags.
Now we have an idea of the type of app we want to build.
4. Get buy-in and feedback from your team/company
If your first project is for your work, getting support from your team or wider company is crucial. But people usually do not like to change. Suddenly announcing you’ve built an amazing app to do X, Y, and Z doesn’t mean people will automatically use it and you could end up wasting your time on an app that is never used which would be a huge shame!
Colleagues
The first thing to do is check that the problem you’ve identified is, in fact, a problem for your colleagues and that they would be open to using a new tool if one was provided for them. Speak to a number of relevant people to better understand the situation.
Management
If the step above seems encouraging, the next step is to speak to management to get their buy-in and secure any budget and internal support you may need. Also check they are willing to help you in getting your colleagues to use your app once it's made.
IT
Finally, we recommend also engaging with IT or engineering, whoever are the technical gatekeepers of your company. Firstly, they may know of some no-code or low-code tools already being used in another department which can be helpful to you. Secondly, there may come a time when you need their help. They will appreciate you giving them some advance notice rather than surprising them later
User research
If everyone above is keen for your app and you have a scope, then we recommend talking to some of your prospective users in depth and asking them what they would like to see in this new app or tool. This provides you with more ideas on how to solve your problem, but people become more invested in what you're doing if they feel they’ve had input into your new new app.
5. Do your data modelling
By this point you should have a good idea of what you’re trying to achieve with your app and therefore an understanding of what data you need to store. Now it’s time to really map out all your data and the relationships between it and decide how you want to structure your data.
Doing this well at the start of development will help make your app more robust to future changes. You want to go really detailed in this step and try to think of everything you may need to store, now and in the near future, to make your data model robust.
This step can be difficult to do before the next step of choosing your development platform so we recommend doing them in sync with each other.
6. Choose your development platform/tools
Now you get to one of the really fun parts, deciding what platform to build your app in. This step should be done in conjunction with data modelling as often the tool will dictate the final data model unless you choose a very flexible tool like Starhive where any data model you decide can be implemented.
There are countless no-code and low-code tools out there and which is best for you will depend on numerous factors like:
- Does your app need to work in a browser or as a mobile app?
- Is it customer facing or internal?
- How technically capable are you? Can you do low-code, or does it need to be no-code?
- How complicated is your data, and how much data do you need to store?
- What other tools do you need to connect with?
- How much budget do you have?
Choosing your preferred tool can be overwhelming, so we recommend choosing a shortlist of 2-3 and then doing the first little bit of your app in your shortlisted apps to understand the pros and cons better of each tool. Almost all of these types of tools offer a free plan or trial so you can try before you buy.
You can see how Starhive and other leading no-code/low-code tools compare here.
7. Build your app
So now you have a data model, you know what you’re trying to build, and you have a platform (or a few platforms to test) to build in. Now it’s time to start actually building!
There’s not too much we can say about this stage as most of the support you will need will be from the vendor and their documentation. Our top tips are to test frequently with a few enthusiastic users and avoid scope creep to help you build something amazing!
A word on documentation: very few people like doing documentation, but we do recommend doing some such as how it is architected and the data model. That way, if someone needs to step in and maintain your app, they can. Or if you need to come back 6 months later, you don’t need to remind yourself how it works.
8. Launch and gather feedback
Once your app or tool is ready (or at least the first iteration is ready) it is time to launch! An exciting and nerve wracking time.
Make sure you provide training on how to use the new app, especially if you have people in your user base who are not very tech-savvy. The more support you can provide them the easier they will adapt to your app. This is the time to put on your marketing hat and keep telling everyone and anyone how amazing your app is. Tell/show your colleagues the benefits they get from using your app, whether that is saving them time, reducing mistakes, giving them more insight into critical data so they can do their jobs better.
Hopefully, at this stage, you will receive lots of feedback and good ideas on how to improve your app too for future iterations. It can sometimes be a bit too overwhelming with feedback and this is a great time to flex your stakeholder management skills.
Pay attention to what people are saying but remember that you don’t need to implement every suggestion. Find the common feedback and prioritise what will make the biggest impact to all your users.
9. Maintain your app
Finally, just like any software, your app will need maintenance. This could be implementing new feature requests but could also be from your no/low-code platform updating which requires an action on your side, it could be integrating a new data source to provide more information to your app users, or fixing bugs (as much as we like to wish there will be no bugs).
Summary
Becoming a citizen developer is an exciting journey that lets you take control of problem-solving in a unique and hands-on way. While there may be challenges, the satisfaction of building your own tools and seeing them used by others makes it all worthwhile.
If you have a problem to solve but are unsure how to approach it, you can contact us. Starhive is a no-code platform for building business apps with a strong focus on data and flexibility in structuring your data, and it may be the right platform for the job.
