Does a single functional application give us a better user experience?

There are two different apps on the iphone: one that focuses on something and makes it deep, and the other is trying to do a lot of different things in an application. So which is better? This is the subject that this article wants to discuss.

two ways

The core of OS X OS is UNIX, which is one of the X windowhttp://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/7380.html "> Team members of Mike Gancarz once had the following famous discussion of Unix: "Let each program do one thing to the extreme." This further affects the design philosophies of many Mac and iOS application developers, and the followers of this genre tend to make the apps they develop work best around a single feature.

(Every page on the iphone provides a lot of space for the application.) It is important to manage your application properly. ）

On the other hand, there are applications that try to meet a variety of user needs. These applications often offer a wide range of features (such as "writing") or a complete platform consisting of many different services, such as Twitter or Facebook. The genre argues that giving an application a variety of functions is at least as convenient and much more comfortable than putting many icons on the screen.

The first question to consider in these two different thoughts is the function of the application.

If each application solves only one problem, the problem may be that it requires many different applications to achieve a goal. For example, I want to have the best Twitter experience. If I want to tweet, Birdhouse's user experience is good; if I'm busy, but don't want to miss the information on Twitter, I'll use trickle to reduce the information interference on Twitter.

Admittedly, these apps are doing a good job in the direction they focus on, but in your limited home space you have to make a choice: do I prefer to speak, or do I like to look at other people's tweets? Or, put two Twitter-related apps on the main screen?

(Tweetbot provides more functionality in one application and less space to occupy the home screen.) ）

In this case, a full-featured and easy-to-use application like Tweetbot can preempt the user's main screen space more than birdhouse and trickle. But the question is, what if this "versatile" application works better than a single functional application?

The bright spot of single application is how to optimize. If developers decide to focus on one thing, they can do a great job. A recent example is Facebook's launch of their Facebook Messenger app. While you can also read information in Facebook apps, a single Messenger app allows you to get into a program faster, talk to others, and so on. There is no doubt that Facebook apps can provide more functionality, such as allowing you to read the information you subscribe to, change status, add photos, and more.

(Facebook apps have many features, and Messenger apps are more focused on instant communication needs.) ）

Optimization is the most important. If you're adding other features that you might not use in an important feature like IM, it's hard to get a really good IM experience. Facebook Messenger shows that a single purpose can have a place on your home page, even if it does not provide the full functionality of its Big Brother app.

This is not necessarily a 0 and a game, you will not be using only single function applications or multi-function applications. Find a balance point for an application, although this balance may be difficult to find.

The factor that really affects what application you use is your priority level of use. Take Twitter for example, whether it's trickle, birdhouse or tweetbox, it's all about your habit of using. Another example is Evernote, which is a powerful application, and you can do a lot of things with Evernote. But does that mean you can't use a simple note like this to save some plain text that doesn't need formatting in the cloud? Definitely not.

This article may cause more thinking for developers. It is important to think about what kind of problem your application needs to address, whether you have the time or resources to hide a lot of things to a good degree, or focus on one thing and do it to the point of absolute scale.

Equally important is the service you offer, where is your market? Who is your user? Is your application relevant to other applications? Is this a solution that can handle all of the user's needs? This requires early decision making and validation of potential customers.

But there is no doubt that writing a good application with many features requires more resources than writing a single functional, outstanding application. The important thing is that you have to jump out of the way before you start doing it, have a clear impression of the overall situation and start doing it as a living person rather than providing you with a market for income and profit. If you can't do anything like Google, don't think about all-inclusive things.

Obviously, this proposition is more dependent on individual preferences. Personally, I don't mind having a single feature app like Messenger that occupies my home screen, but I also use some versatile apps like Facebook,tweetbot,evernote and so on. It all depends on what kind of application you want: an application that works best for one thing, or the ability to handle multiple tasks flexibly?

This article is from: http://www.leiphone.com/are-single-function-apps-better.html
Original English: http://iphone.appstorm.net/general/opinion-general/are-single-function-apps-better/