A Mobile App Success Starter Pack

When you’re pitching a mobile app to a prospective client, it’s easy to focus on the app’s raison d’être. A pizza-ordering app should order pizza, a messaging app should send messages, and a game should be fun. For an app to succeed, there are countless other hidden tasks to consider: does your app respond well to poor network connectivity? Is it always clear when it’s waiting on network communication? What happens when you ship the app but need to prevent users from using a broken version? In this talk we’ll look at common examples of the unspoken assumptions made when creating apps—assumptions that clients may have, assumptions users definitely have, and the things no app should leave an App Store without. Using these critical features as a guide, you’ll be better prepared to estimate project length and deliver amazing (and successful) apps.

Transcript

1. A Mobile App Success Starter Pack
   Jeff Kelley (@SlaunchaMan)
   Motor City CocoaHeads, August 15th, 2019
   

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2. Your App’s Raison
   D’Être
   The thing your app does should be where you spend
   most of your time… at first.
   Jeff Kelley |
   

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3. Image by Henrik Kniberg
   

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4. Your MVP
   • Only the features you need to launch
   • Differentiate your app vs. others
   • Position your app in the market
   Jeff Kelley |
   

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5. Your MVP
   • Only the features you need to launch
   • Differentiate your app vs. others
   • Position your app in the market
   This is what you’re worried about during the MVP. But what do your users notice when it
   launches?
   Jeff Kelley |
   

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6. User Experience Polish
   Take a minute and think about all of the apps that have frustrated you over the years.
   Why did they frustrate you?
   Jeff Kelley |
   

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7. User Experience Polish
   Networking
   What happens between the screens of your comps?
   Jeff Kelley |
   

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8. User Experience Polish
   Networking
   When a network request is happening, inform the
   user using an activity indicator.
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9. User Experience Polish
   Networking
   While your app is loading, be careful to avoid
   double-taps on UI elements that initiate these
   requests.
   Jeff Kelley |
   

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10. User Experience Polish
    Networking
    One way to handle double-taps is to obscure the
    user interface while the network request occurs. This
    is useful for situations where the app should be
    unusable during the request.
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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11. User Experience Polish
    Networking
    If the rest of the interface should still allow user
    interaction, consider disabling or removing just the
    buttons that would start a second request.
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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12. User Experience Polish
    Networking
    Another approach is to immediately display the other
    view, then load in data when it arrives.
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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13. User Experience Polish
    Failure States
    All of those cases apply to successful results. But as
    we all know, network requests can fail. How are you
    going to handle that?
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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14. User Experience Polish
    Failure States
    All of those cases apply to successful results. But as
    we all know, network requests can fail. How are you
    going to handle that?
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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15. User Experience Polish
    Text Entry
    If your app supports login, how does your login form
    behave?
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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16. User Experience Polish
    Common Text Entry Pitfalls
    How many issues can you find with this login form?
    • Incorrect keyboard type
    • Return doesn’t advance to “Password” field
    • Autocorrect enabled for username/e-mail field
    • Missing text input traits to fill username and
    password
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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17. User Experience Polish
    Common Text Entry Pitfalls
    When implementing UITextFieldDelegate, consider these edge cases:
    • Hardware keyboards (iPhone too!)
    • Emoji
    • Pasting into the field
    • Pasting War and Peace into the field
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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18. User Experience Polish
    Common UITextFieldDelegate Pitfalls
    // Prevent pasting by preventing multi-length characters
    func textField(_ textField: UITextField,
    shouldChangeCharactersIn range: NSRange,
    replacementString string: String) -> Bool {
    guard range.length == 1 else { return false }
    return true
    }
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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19. User Experience Polish
    Common UITextFieldDelegate Pitfalls
    // Prevent emoji by inspecting the replacement string
    func textField(_ textField: UITextField,
    shouldChangeCharactersIn range: NSRange,
    replacementString string: String) -> Bool {
    guard string.unicodeScalars
    .filter({ $0.properties.isEmoji })
    .isEmpty
    else { return false }
    return true
    }
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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20. User Experience Polish
    Common UITextFieldDelegate Pitfalls
    // Prevent emoji by stripping them from the replacement string
    func textField(_ textField: UITextField,
    shouldChangeCharactersIn range: NSRange,
    replacementString string: String) -> Bool {
    if string.unicodeScalars
    .filter({ $0.properties.isEmoji })
    .isEmpty {
    return true
    }
    else {
    let newReplacementString = String(string.unicodeScalars
    .filter { !$0.properties.isEmoji})
    let newText = (textField.text as NSString?)?
    .replacingCharacters(in: range, with: newReplacementString)
    textField.text = newText
    return false
    }
    }
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21. User Experience Polish
    Persistence
    Have you ever opened the new version of an app,
    only to have this happen?
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22. User Experience Polish
    Accessibility
    It doesn’t matter how nice your app is if your users
    can’t use it.
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23. User Experience Polish
    Accessibility
    It doesn’t matter how nice your app is if your users
    can’t use it.
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24. User Experience Polish
    Accessibility
    It doesn’t matter how nice your app is if your users
    can’t use it.
    Jeff Kelley |
    

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25. Photo by Andrew Guan on Unsplash
    

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26. Why Do These Matter?
    • Ubuntu’s “One Hundred Papercuts” Initiative
    • Users notice, even if they can’t articulate
    • Users have built-in expectations for how apps behave
    • Driven by the platform
    • They increase friction, make it less likely that people use your app
    Photo by Rohit Tandon on Unsplash
    

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27. Your Job as a Developer
    • Learn what the best practices are for your platform
    • Speak Up when these things are missing from plans
    • Include these details in estimates, story cards, etc.
    • Promote a culture where these little things are a given
    Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
    

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28. How to Learn
    • Use apps!
    • Apple Design Awards and other points of recognition
    • Read app reviews
    • Look at built-in applications
    Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
    

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29. Questions?
    Contact info:
    Jeff Kelley
    @SlaunchaMan
    jeff@detroitlabs.com
    

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