1. Understand Your Audience: The first and foremost step is to identify your target audience or the end-users who will access your eLearning content through the native app. Questions such as who is your audience and why your audience will use your content will help you understand your future users and set the foundation to build your native app.

2. Understand Why You Wish to Create a Native App: So why do you want a native app? Is it to help elementary school kids with their lessons, help someone learn a foreign language, or provide your employees with critical information to better perform their jobs? Once you know your goals, you will be able to create the technical specifications, along with all necessary tools and features.

3. Choose the Media Formats to Create Your Content: You can format your content to include text, audio, video, graphics, animations and more. Your native app can use any one or a combination of formats to enrich your content. For example, gamification is a great way to capture the attention of young children, while audio may work better for busy professionals on the move. So, it’s important to pick a format that works best for your audience.

4. Make Learning Fun and Smart: The whole point of digital learning is that you can make storytelling more immersive and engaging. We all have our procrastination moments. So, it is important to add elements that will keep learners engaged and motivated. Also, make sure your learners know where they stopped last time and the progress they have made along the way.

5. Create Technical Specifications: Like any other app development project, you need to create your technical specifications document which describes the functions and features of the native app to be developed with the minutest detail possible. In case you don’t have in-house technical expertise, you can approach your native app development company to help you do it.

6. Select Your Developer: This is perhaps one of the most crucial steps in developing a native app. Realize that developing custom app requires money and other resources and so the developer you choose can either make or break your project. You can go by word-of-mouth or search online. Make sure that the native app developer you choose has a proven track record in app development. Also, it is also a good idea to consider developers who specialize in eLearning because they can help you plug loopholes which you have not considered in your technical and other specifications. Also ensure that the terms of engagement are clearly specified. And it’s not all over with the signing of the contract. It is a good idea to keep track of the development process until the release so that there are no untoward surprises later.

7. Test Your Native App After the Launch: Once you launch your native app, make sure to conduct extensive testing by your end users. Have them test the app and provide their feedback. This will allow you to identify any errors or glitches which you can ask your native app developer to address.