strategy

do you really need an app for that?

Mobile is an essential component of digital strategy at our agency. We ensure that brands express consistently across multiple media – from desktop to smartphone and everything in between. When it comes to building apps however, we're dealing with two fundamental issues:

• Does the app fit with the client's digital strategy?
• Does the client have a good idea for an app?

This article provides an overview of apps and highlights part of our approach to app design and development.

what are apps?

Apps are specialized programs built for mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – that allow users to view content, perform tasks or play games. Apps are wonderful tools for the dissemination of engaging content. Users can spend hours lost in a game, or engrossed in a digital magazine full of animations and videos that bring its content to life. Diet and exercise apps, for example, can become a central part of a user's workout routine. In health and wellness, many pharmaceutical brands have created symptom tracker apps that allow users to track their condition and create records that can be emailed or brought to their doctor's office. With smartphones and, increasingly, tablets, always at users' fingertips, apps provide brands with new opportunities to reach consumers.

branded apps

Brands are jumping into the fray by creating apps geared towards consumers. Branded apps can fall into several categories, ranging from games to utilities. These apps serve as tools to increase brand awareness, provide entertainment or enhance a product. Organizations and companies also create enterprise apps, which are distributed internally as tools to help employees or representatives do their jobs. Enterprise apps are not made available to the public, whereas branded consumer apps can be downloaded from app stores.

Another difference between branded and enterprise apps is that, usage of the former is elective whereas, employees are often required to use company-mandated apps. As with most things, there are good apps and bad apps. Successful apps gain popularity and get featured in app stores. Conversely, less popular apps don't get the spotlight. Users determine whether an app is good or bad by their reviews and number of downloads. So what makes a bad app? The answers will vary depending on whom you talk to. For me, a bad app is a program that seems to have no purpose or function, has a poor interface, and is difficult to use. I may encounter one or all these criteria in one app.

ideas for apps

Our agency builds apps, but we also create websites, rich media banners, TV commercials and print ads for our clients. When a client comes to us with an app idea, we assess it carefully. Is it a branded app or an enterprise app? What is the value proposition for users with the app? What's the business model?

App ideas fall into four categories:

• Good ideas – apps that have utilities, content, or entertainment that will benefit users and the brand
• Web apps – apps that require a web connection to function
• Impossible ideas – apps that are impossible to implement or require functions that are prohibited by the operating system manufacturer's terms of use
• Bad ideas – apps that are not worth the effort or investment of time and money to develop

If a client comes to us with a bad idea, we don't outright dismiss it. One can always glean something of value from a bad idea and use that to formulate a better idea.
Sometimes a client won't have any idea at all; just conviction that their brand or business needs an app. This is when our digital strategists work with our user experience team to come up an app idea. This gives us a great opportunity to identify an unmet need. For example, a popular yoga center may benefit from an app that allows members to book classes and manage their schedules on a tablet or smartphone. That same app can contain tips on exercise and nutrition that will augment the members' experience. The yoga center's app, through promotion, could become a tool that increases loyalty in their current membership while attracting new members.

considerations

Once we've established the app idea, we do a little research and discovery. How will the client's idea and brand be best expressed as an app? What features will we need (e.g., social media integration, GPS, camera function, photo gallery, etc)? This provides a foundation for how the app will function. Will it be offered for free or will users have to pay to download it? What is the expected shelf life of the app?

designing and building apps

Once we've pinned down the idea, it's time to get started. As a user experience designer, I take an app idea and think of scenarios where the app would be used. I develop personas that help me define who would be using the app, tying that to my use-case scenarios to create context. Part of this process may or may not involve interviewing potential users of the app. My findings will inform low-fidelity prototypes (e.g., wireframes, mock-ups), which can be used for testing in advance of design and development. There is no sequencing to the order of things. For instance, I could be developing personas while simultaneously outlining the workflow of an app and creating initial interface designs.

Lastly, I document everything. Some of my readers may frown at this, thinking it's a bit too "waterfall" instead of "agile". Believe me, documentation can become an untamable Beast of Validation – dragged out at every turn to convince stakeholders and clients that you're doing the right thing. Having been there and done that, I'm very sensitive to the pitfalls of documenting. This doesn't mean specification documents are obsolete. I like to bundle my process files into project folders and a spec document. The spec document is especially useful if I'm working with developers because it contains application maps, UML diagrams, and descriptions of functions that they would find useful during programming. I also use my documents as reference to track how a project evolves over the course of development.

While working on the spec document, I'm also collaborating with digital designers on the user interface design (or designing the user interface, depending on my role on the project team), as well as working with developers to ensure the app is being programmed correctly.

Prior to launch, the app is tested and quality assured. It is also submitted to the app store for approval (this step is sometimes not required).

to app or not to app

Apps are expensive. They require a big investment of time and money. As app development becomes mainstream, the costs to build one may decrease, but the investment of money and resources could still be high. Before setting to task to build an app or ask a developer to program one for you, consider where and how the app fits in your digital strategy.