Learning apps have become a key part of the online education space in the last few years. Even between desktops and mobile, there is a preference for the latter when it comes to education.
A Learndash report suggests that roughly 70% of learners felt more motivated to use mobile phones for learning over desktops. This highlights the importance of apps in making learning easier and accessible for learners across the board.
Why are apps preferred over desktops? For one, people have more ready access to smartphones compared to desktops. Mobile learning is thus more accessible compared to any other format of learning. It is also important to understand that apps have become the primary medium to consume content these days.
Building a learning website is fairly easy. With a CMS platform like WordPress, you can use LMS plugins like Learndash and Tutor LMS to get a learning website up and running.
What about creating a mobile app? App development can be a tedious prospect, but you can use DIY tools to convert your LMS WordPress website into an app.
In this article, we cover the steps required to build an LMS app for Android and iOS. We will use AppMySite to explain to make an app. Keep in mind, you need to have a WordPress website to use AppMySite to create an app.
Step 1: Design your app assets
Once you create an account on AppMySite, the first step is designing your app. You can choose from a ton of design features available. By completing five main steps, you can essentially set up your app design:
- Icon: You can design your app icon using the tools available. If you find the tools a little insufficient, you can always upload your own artwork instead.
- Splash screen: The splash screen is essentially a loading interface that appears when your app is launched. You can design it here using the tools available, and upload artwork for other assets.
- Login & signup: With the onboarding screens, you can set a background, add a logo, and style the buttons. There are options to upload artwork for the background and logo. You can also use the existing design tools if that’s what you want to do.
- Color theme: Choose the color of your app’s header, and design your action button. Your choices will be reflected across all the app screens.
- Home screen: With the home screen, you have several customization options. You can design individual sections, change their arrangement, and manage the visibility of each. You can also choose which categories and pages you wish to display, and also design the main banner of your app.
Step 2: Connect your site and app
AppMySite essentially syncs the content on your website with a native app interface. This means that the content on your website is synced directly to the app.
To sync content from your website to the app, you need to complete two main steps:
- Installing the AppMySite plugin on your WordPress site.
- Generating WordPress Application Passwords
The first step is quite simple. You simply need to install and activate the AppMySite plugin on your website. After this, you can generate application passwords within your WordPress admin panel.
Once the connectivity is established, your app will be populated with content from your website. You can follow this process to connect WooCommerce-based websites as well.
Additionally, there is a troubleshooting module available in case there are issues with your connectivity.
Step 3: Sync custom posts to your app
Most LMS plugins essentially offer course functionality through custom posts. If this is the case, you can sync course content to your app as well.
To do this, you first need to add the courses you offer to the primary menu of your app. Once this is done, you can sync this menu to the side menu of the app. The items of your primary menu will be rendered in the app.
You can choose to show your custom posts in webview as well if they don’t come out properly in the native interface. Simply enable webview on the Post settings screen to do this.
Step 4: Preview and download your app
You can preview the look and feel of your app in the Android and iOS emulators. These emulators accurately reflect how your app looks and works.
In this module, you can preview each app screen and see if it’s looking and working as intended. If there are design issues, you can always go back and make the changes needed to rectify the same.
When you’re happy with the preview, you can download your app. There is an option to download both the Android and iOS files of your app.
You can upload these files to your developer accounts. Once the apps are approved, they will be visible on Google Play and App Store.
In conclusion
Online learning is going nowhere, and mobile apps will be at the forefront of making quality resources accessible to people across the board. The main challenge is overcoming the technical hurdle of creating a mobile app. The steps here explain how you can build and submit your LMS app to Google Play and App Store. If you have an LMS WordPress website, you can easily launch your mobile app with reliable app-making tools like AppMySite and launch a mobile app seamlessly.