Mobile Apps – Functionality First!
In my previous newsletter, I said that there are four keys to building a great mobile app:
- Functionality
- Design and Usability
- Performance
- Knowing your market
In this newsletter, I’m going to focus on functionality.
Unlike desktop web sites and applications, which often value completeness above all else (think Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop), mobile apps must be limited in the number of things they do. Part of the reason to limit the functionality of mobile apps is that mobile devices have much more limited screen space, bandwidth, memory, and storage space. More importantly, however: mobile apps are used by mobile people.
If you’re in the process of developing a mobile app right now, stop thinking about what you can add to it to improve it. Start thinking about what you can remove. How can you make your app easier to use when someone is walking through the airport, or at a restaurant with their family, or lost on their way to an appointment and pulled over at the side of the road? Always remember that your app is almost never going to be the primary thing that a person is doing, and you don’t have their complete focus. If this one rule guides every decision you make about your app’s functionality, you’re well on your way to building a great, or at least useful, app.
In my next newsletter, I’ll talk about mobile app design and usability, as well as how users decide if yours is an app they will come back to.