Make Your Details Count
“The details are not details. They make the product. In the end it is the details that give the product its life.” — Charles Eames
In the competitive world of apps creating a differentiated experience is critical for success. Differentiated experiences are often created not by adding new features, but by focusing on product details that really stand out and get at the core of the experience. A unique way to interact with content, a strong dopamine laden feedback loop, a strong visual metaphor for a key interaction all can contribute to creating a singular experience.
Here are some of my favorite examples of these details:
Snapchat
Snapchat Stories allow you to see a a continuous full screen feed of photos and videos. An infinite scrolling feed is a staple of social apps. But this feed doesn’t scroll and display bite size information. It’s full screen and hence very immersive.
The only way a snapchat user can view one of these story feeds is by holding their finger on the screen for the duration of feed. This might seems like a dumb tactic, but it’s actually quite brilliant. Holding your finger on the screen subconsciously creates a strong and more immediate connection to the content. I wish I thought of this.
Squarespace Note
Squarespace’s Note app allows a user to compose a quick note and send it with a pull-to-send gesture. The gesture feels very natural and works with the idea of flipping a virtual page in a notepad.
Unread
Unread’s RSS reader app allows the user to mark articles as read in a particular category through a pull-to-mark as read gesture. Once the user reaches the end of the feed, if they pull up, a little indicator appears and informs them that all their items are about to be marked as read. This is not an easy or obvious gesture to discover, but once you know it, it’s incredibly useful.
A similar gesture is used in the app to expose the custom share options. This one is a pull-to-share.
The beauty of these gestures is how easy they are to use and how preferable they are to buttons especially on larger screen devices.
Waze
As an app that helps users avoid road traffic, this app uses a traditional workflow of button taps allow the user to start navigating to their destination. But there’s a more direct way to engage the core use case of the app. A swipe to nagivate gesture that gets the user right into the core interaction of the app. Do it once and it becomes addictive.
Hotel Tonight
Pay close attention to the animation in this app. When you tap on a particular hotel, the detail view slides open and name of the hotel animates into position. Most of us probably won’t even notice this subtle detail but it creates a feeling of entering a physical place and provides increasing emphasis on the name of the place.
When following a user on twitter, the app immediately reveals 3 other possible people to follow that are related to this account. This is a simple detail of showing discovery information contextually after the user has taken an action and when they’re most likely to want to see it.
Overcast
A way this podcast app shows that a show is playing is brilliant. It appears right over the artwork and gives you a sens that there’s a real show going on here.
Picturelife
The animation the user sees navigating between two different dates on their photo timeline is one of my favorite mobile design details. It really gives the user the feeling that they’re navigating through time and through a sea of their own unique memories. The user can feel the comprehensiveness of the product.
Now that you’ve seen some of these examples, I encourage you to try out these mobile products and experience these details firsthand. If you’re an app developer or designer, remember that incorporating these types of details is a powerful way to set your app experience apart. In addition if you nail these interaction details, users are likely to have a stronger connection to your product experience.
For more thoughts on product design and user experience, follow me on twitter — @ozlubling.
