Why Your App Shouldn't Have the Kitchen Sink

How to keep your mobile app development targeted and successful.

When creating a mobile app it can be tempting to include all the possible bells and whistles you can think of. But really, your app should remain simple and focused to be a success. Here are some key points to remember to keep your app on target.

According to Nielsen, the average smartphone user has 41 apps installed on their phone, but only regularly interacts with two dozen or fewer, making it even harder to stand out in the sea of “opened once then forgotten” apps.

Narrow your focus

Your app should focus on primary tasks that drive towards a single, strategic marketing goal. If the app needs to appeal to various audiences, then the use of CocoaPods can help manage dependencies and deliver a use-case-customized experience that separates users and tasks accordingly.

Focusing on one or two essential tasks makes it easier for increasingly busy and distracted users to engage with your app in their brief spare moments (microsessions). Creating a simple and targeted experience makes your app more likely to be among the coveted two dozen used every month.

Stay on brand 

The App Store might have been an ‘if you build it they will come” situation back in 2008, but six years later many marketers are still acting like it the early years of MTV and tossing a mishmash of discrete apps into the App Store. Keeping your app on-brand prevents you from releasing a valueless app that might even have a negative impact on your brand.

Even the biggest brands still release apps that have no value. One of the biggest offenders is Walking Dead Chop Shop. Ostensibly a “game” sponsored by Hyundai, it’s neither an actual game nor does it have any real connection to either brand. Instead it’s a confusing mess with a weak promotion, a deeply disappointing user experience and a major missed opportunity for Hyundai.

Do one thing, and do it well

Social apps are really excellent examples of these principles. Apps like Instagram, Tinder and the staggeringly popular Snapchat really do only one thing. These are extraordinarily simple apps, and users have responded in droves (Instagram has 200 million active users a month).

These apps don’t confuse users with dozens of features, they perform their simple jobs elegantly and efficiently.

There’s so much you can do with apps, but that doesn’t mean you should do it all. Having a strategy that keeps your app simple, focused and relevant to the user’s needs is essential to getting your app downloaded and keeping your app installed.