There is not one way to make good apps. Every good app is different in many ways. However, there are few basic traits which run across all good apps which is essential for an app maker to take care irrespective of types of apps.
The app market is already a crowded place and achieving success is a formidable task. Following these traits increases the chance of your success.
- Fun or Entertaining - Who does not like to be entertained. Apps are an easier way for entertainment. Originally, phones were conceived for easier communication especially telephonic communication. With the maturity of app eco-system, a person does not use the mobile phone just for basic utility rather its scope has expanded much beyond basic human needs. In fact, most of the time, we use apps for entertainment, fun, listening music, etc. not just talking over the phone. So, it becomes an imperative for every app developer and designer take care of a user’s entertainment need from the beginning of development cycle. Without entertainment, phones will start behaving like telephone and that would be a regressive idea.
- Intuitive - In the past when electric devices were not a predominant part of our lifestyle, every electric device had an operating manual. It was highly recommended by the device manufacturer to read the manual before operating the device and all of us hated to read a long manual before operating a device. Such time has passed long back and the app developer does not have the same luxury. No one like to read a manual to operate an app. You cannot expect, rightly so, for the user to read a detailed article about how to use your app. That would be a travesty of design and development. Ideally, the app design should be blend with your user’s intuition organically. A user must be able to navigate through your app entirely without any written guidance. We are living in a time of instant gratification and your users will not have time to learn to operate your app.
- Engaging - A phone is part of our lifestyle and it is not like any other electronic device. The phones are a very personal device and Apps are not like a website. Apps are on a user’s phone and a person always keep the phone with him/her all the time. Why? Because they want to engage with it. On average, we open our phone more 150 times in 24 hours. This is the power of phones and it is possible only because of the ability of the apps to engage with users. However, there is fine line difference between engagement and intrusion. Any engagement without user’s permission or without user’s interest amounts to intrusion. Even frequent engagement can lead to frustration. So, every app developer needs to careful to engage with users and always strive to strike the balance and never breach the limits.
- Addictive - In the context of apps, addiction shows the loyalty to your business and every business people can vouch for the importance of loyalty to create a long-lasting sustainable business. Addiction brings loyalty and loyalty increases retention. So, don’t forget making your app addictive to the users. It can be only done by making your app so valuable to users that they feel incomplete without your app. It is easier said than done. In reality, it is a very hard task to executive and you can never make an advance prediction about bringing addictive factor to your app experience with 100% surety. It is more of art than science. However, having a child-like mindset could be helpful.
- Valuable - Today’s app users are very smart and it is very difficult to outsmart users. Withing being valuable to user's need and desire, it is impossible to achieve any milestone. Anything which adds something to the life of a user creates value. It could be entertaining users, enabling a user to perform a task in an easier way, enhancing the productivity and help them to do more in less effort, helping to communicate better, anything which makes them feel good about themselves, etc. Value creation is limited by your imagination only. Different apps create value in different ways. That is why we have millions of apps on various app stores and all the successful apps have one common trait which is value creation for a set of users. So, it is better to focus on value creation from the beginning itself and you will be better off.
- Cross-cultural - We live in silos. At times, it becomes a difficult task for the development team to empathize with others pain point, values and culture. As a developer, you may think that these are trivial things not worthy of spending time and you have a tendency to either ignore or take these things for granted. This could be your biggest mistake. Investing in understanding cross culture can have the highest return on investment.
- Great Graphics - Humans have five senses and our visual sense is the fastest one. In any app, user’s brain will evaluate graphic first and app graphic could be a deal maker or deal breaker. Without a graphics pleasing to eyes, a person will not even download the app, forget about using the app. However, a good graphic should not be at the cost of user experience. Otherwise, you may be able to create a very good first impression but it will not last for a very long time. As a consequence, retaining users to keep using your app will be almost impossible. In the context of apps, retention is always bigger challenge than user acquisition. Ideally, user interface and user experience should go hand in hand. At times, it could be contradictory and in such scenarios, it is advisable to give preference to experience over graphics.
- Personalised - Different users have different needs and different users use any app is different ways. With only one app, how can you satisfy different users with different needs? The Answer lies in the personalization of app to the extent possible. Technically, you can create only one app however with the personalization you can provide multiple experiences for a different set of users. Your users will feel good about a very personal experience and you will get rewarded by retaining your users for a longer period of time. In the era when a person has the multiple options to choose, personalization offers a great opportunity to differentiate your app. For instance, Amazon has only one website but every user has different interface based on a personalized recommendation and it has given a good return to Amazon. Take the lesson from Amazon and customize your app as much as you can and you will never be disappointed.
- Functional - If you have given a feature then it should work properly. It is like stating the most obvious thing. Generally, we have a tendency to take obvious thing for granted and in that hubris, sometimes, we forget to fix an obvious thing. It becomes even more challenging task for individual developers. By in large, such developers do not a system, machinery, and resources to go for rigorous testing before launching the app. It brings an extra challenge to manage. On the other hand, it can be seen as an opportunity as well. Since you are small so you can be agiler and pivot much more easily. Your actions will not be scrutinized as much as big names. This brings flexibility which in turn can very useful to conduct iterations and find the product market fit before going for aggressive growth.
- Social - This is relatively new but important phenomena which cannot be ignored anymore and being social is not only for social category apps. Humans are social species and we need to share our good and bad moments with our loved one. With the high penetration of apps like Facebook and WhatsApp, providing social feature become paramount for any app in contemporary time and being social is a contextual concept varies with kind of task any app perform.
