Starting an iPhone® Application Business For Dummies®

Chapter 19. Ten Traits of Highly Successful Applications

As you go through the process of creating, developing, and marketing your iPhone application, keep in mind this list of the ten traits that we have seen in highly successful apps. Not all successful apps have all these traits, but most have a number of them.

Great Design

As we discuss in Chapter 10, the importance of design can't be overstated. The Apple brand is all about form meets function, so the expectations of Apple users are very high as far as aesthetics are concerned. However, design doesn't boil down to just how good an app looks. It also has to do with how the design connects with the subject matter and audience for an app. For example, Dizzy Bee (which we discuss in Chapter 4) has a very child-like design. Comparatively, Whole Foods Recipes has a design that evokes hominess and freshness, which are two strong traits of the Whole Foods brand.

Design also blends ease of use and how fun an app is to use, which we discuss later in this chapter. The following design aspects blend to create the overall design of an app:

• Graphic design: The imagery, colors, fonts, and textures used.

• User interface design: The layout of the functions of the app onscreen, how the functions operate, and how screens transition between each other.

• User experience design: How the app is perceived, learned, and used. In other words, it is that high-level design direction that determines how an app fits into the users' life in context with the rest ...