Thoughtful apps need a story (and a launch trailer)

With so much of app development and user interface design being standardized with declarative programming, design systems and UI kits, things start to look the same and it’s becoming harder to stand out.

Great apps have a sense of story behind them. A sense of history. That it’s part of a larger universe. Even if you’re just seeing its icon or onboarding screen, you get the feeling that you’re only scratching the surface of something much bigger.

And this is usually the case. During more involved development there’s a lot work that goes unseen. A lot of design concepts, prototypes and ideas that remain hidden from the world. But in the minds of the people creating the app, it all adds to the story. So when time comes to execute the app icon or the welcome screen, you can just tell that a lot of care and thought went into it. Perhaps it’s intangible, but I believe you can feel it.

An example of this is an was the work that went into the app Tomat (Swedish for tomato). Turning its leaf into something that resembled a star was a fun idea that could convey how the app contains your favorite recipes. The icon was created in Cinema 4D which adds a high level of fidelity, with final touches in the old work horse Photoshop.

Making an icon inside of Cinema 4D has the added benefit that it becomes relatively easy to animate it. So naturally I turned it into a teaser trailer for the app.

An artifact like this trailer gets the team excited and aligns the vision going forward.

I’ve had similar experiences. At Quill, making a new icon for the Mac client turned into a teaser trailer of a floating feather that gracefully lands in the macOS dock. It got the team excited and piqued the interest in the community. I love how the piano track builds excitement. 

At my time at Mainframe, we took app trailers to the next level. When teasing the upcoming Cobot app, this video made the rounds. In best Game of Thrones-style, the UI for a thread was presented in style.

Of course this is not to say all apps need involved back stories. But it’s another tool in your utility belt as a designer or developer.

And this world building needs to be followed up and executed on inside of the experience with animations, haptics, custom icons and possibly sounds. On top of a well-thought out user interface and easy-to-understand flows. 

If you need help building out your app universe — reach out!