An App’s Anatomy: What Makes the Perfect Application

You probably know what an application is, which most people shorten as “app.” It’s a software or computer program that someone designed to run on your smartphone or another mobile device. It’s similar to a website, but a programmer created it for portability.

If you’re running an app on a smartwatch, tablet, or phone, there are probably certain things that you want it to do, while there are also likely some particular things that you don’t want to see from it. Let’s talk about what makes a great app, and we’ll also cover some ways that an app can prove to be disastrous.

What You Want Your App to Do

There are millions of apps now, and creators come up with more of them every day. These programmers often look at their apps like their babies. They might have an idea and work on the app for months or even years, coding for days on end to get it to market as quickly as possible.

Apps can do just about anything. You might have one that plays games, another that offers you a digital financial experience, and a third through which you can order food. You might use a dozen different apps or more during the day, especially if you’re someone who’s always on their phone.

But what do you want an app to do? The easy answer is that every app should fulfill a particular function or more than one. But that’s too general: let’s break it down a little further.

Excellent UX

When you download and try out an app, you need it to be easy to use. You want the functionality to seem perfect, which is to say that you want it to be intuitive. It’s the same thing that you’d like for a website that a programmer designed for you to explore on your desktop or laptop.

When we speak about how easy or difficult it is to use an app, we’re talking about UX, otherwise known as user experience. The chances are high that if you don’t like an app, it’s because someone designed it poorly. The user experience is not intuitive, so you feel lost when using it.

When you download an app, you know what you want it to do. If you find that the app is not cooperating, that’s probably going to frustrate you, and you might delete it. When one app doesn’t work for you, you can often find a similar one to replace it because of market saturation.

What You Don’t Want It to Do

You don’t want your app to have any bugs or glitches that render it inoperable. That’s doesn’t happen often, but it’s possible.

If you own an iPhone, and you get your apps through the App Store, they vet everyone that they feature, so it shouldn’t infect your phone with viruses or anything of that nature. Beyond that, though, you don’t want an app to send you a million notifications that you don’t need.

You don’t want an app to hide its features in a way that you can’t immediately find them if you’re in a hurry. Also, you almost never want to have to pay for an app. Since most apps are free, an application had better be really special for you to be willing to shell out some money for it. You’re probably already paying plenty for your phone plan every month, and you don’t want to have to pay for apps on top of that.

The Ideal App

If you want to know what a good app looks like, check out one like the Amazon app. You can download it and look through millions of products almost instantaneously.

You can start to type any word or phrase into the search bar, and autofill will intuit what you’re trying to say. The app will then feature all the closest matches.

You can sort by price, going from lowest to highest or vice versa. You can shop based on several other criteria. You can add the products you want to your shopping cart, or else you can add them to your public list so people can get them for you for your birthday or other special occasions.

The application lets you save your credit card information so you can buy something without having to reenter the numbers and the security code. Its apps like this make the creators money because they’re easy, functional, and visually appealing.