Overpass Apps is making waves in iOS and Android designs in the UK

Overpass Apps is making waves in iOS and Android designs in the UK And you’d be surprised how often design is an afterthought in a mobile app project.  

Software developers are often very right-brained and logical.  I know this is a generalization and doesn’t apply in all cases, but I am a software developer, and I am more right-brain than left brain.  

In my early days on the app market, I assumed that the best and most efficient applications would do better than an app with that was less active.  

Boy, was I wrong?

Everyone who enters the app market in 2019 knows that discoverability and getting new downloads is more difficult than ever.  I frequently talk about the stages of app success and that you need to consider these before you even start your next app project.

To be successful, you need the following:

• Your app needs to be found and discovered.
• It needs to be downloaded
• The app needs to give a great user experience and fulfill the goals of that app (monetization, branding, etc.).

The first stage is discoverability.  Most apps fail because no one knows about them.  Discoverability can be fixed with advertising, search engine optimization (using relevant keywords), or sharing on social media.

But, even if you can drive people to your Android app on Google Play or the Amazon App Store or to the App Store for your iOS app, if it looks terrible, you will never reach stage two.  And your perfect app will never be seen or experienced.

So, in some ways, your design and visual experience of your app are more important than the code. It doesn’t seem right, but that’s just the way it is.

So, we take Android and iOS design very seriously.  It can’t be an afterthought. In the old days, it may have been easy to say “we’ve built it, now what should the icon look?  What colours should we use?” Now, we need to start with that as it sets the tone for the entire experience.

At Overpass, we have a delivery process (let us know if you’d like to learn more about this and we can send you our documentation) which starts with design.  We don’t write code until the design is decided.

We do this with tools like Balsamiq (for wireframes) and Adobe XD (for clickable prototypes).  

Many times, our clients come to us with problems they need to solve.  These problems could be something like the following:

• “I need an app, so my employees can log time on projects.”
• “My customers should be updated with push notifications so I need an app.”
• “I need an app to communicate via Bluetooth to our physical product and give readings.”

And many more.

And our job, in many cases, is to decide what that will “look like” when put into an app.  And that starts with wireframes and then clickable prototypes.

This way, our clients know what we are building, and our developers know too.  The biggest problem most software projects face is communication. And the design is challenging to communicate.

At Overpass, the design is just as essential and development.  

Design first.  Always.

Are you ready to start your project?  Then get in touch with us and fill out this form if you have an app idea or a project that you want us to develop. Here’s the link: https://www.overpass.co.uk/new-project-form-3/.

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