Ask questions about the screens and features

It’s difficult to pinpoint a sweet spot in regards to how many screens an app should have, but you can begin to formulate an idea by examining the navigation horizontally (how many different menu items there are to choose from), then vertically (how deep the screens go in the navigation). For the non-technical, first-time entrepreneur, 99.9 percent of the time, I would encourage them to go with fewer features. Fewer features means more manageable, cheaper, faster, and better to build.

Once you’ve completed your paper sketches, there are apps on the iPhone (such as Pop or Marvel, both free options) that allow you to take a photo of your sketches and add linked buttons on top of the photo. Through these apps, you can link together the sketch photos so that when you tap a button, it flows to the next screen, essentially creating a prototype that provides a pretty comprehensive view of how your app would look and feel.

Share your prototype with a friend or two and let them click through. Ask questions about the screens and features. This simple exercise can be incredibly insightful.

You could also conduct a full-on user interview at this point, which is a more formal way to test each screen. The interview would entail asking the test user how they interpret each screen (i.e., what is the screen’s function), the end result they expect from each screen, and where the screen will lead.