How to Make a Droid App That Works

I have heard that the only universal programming language is profanity. That is largely due to the Murphy's Law (Sod's Law in the UK) corollary, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Finding out early about problems in your app will work out a lot better than finding out later. The key then, is to cull your herd before you get it to market, or in non-cattle terms, debug as you go so it is not a buggy app you submit for sale or free download.

People will review apps submitted and the best reviewers are not there to be kind to your feelings. If your app fails to do what it is designed to do, you will not get favorable reviews.Without favorable reviews, you will have a much harder time moving past the "apps submitted this week" level of exposure.

Starting from the premise that you are going to write apps, let me get a couple of things out of the way: there is no app store in Android and no developer program. As a direct result, there is a lot of chaos in the Android app market and a lot of apps that would not have been approved for Apple's App Store. All this means there is a lot of competition out there, so you need to get it done right.

To work out your app, I have seen it suggested in a video from Stanford University called "How to make an iPhone app that doesn't suck," that you should draw out your "screen shots" on letter sized paper. Then ideally you should get someone who is well aware or has the same problem as someone for whom you are making this app go through it with you. Have your helper poke the page as though he/she has chosen an icon there, then switch the page to one that would come up when that icon is touched. Then, if there is an icon to be touched on the subsequent screen, then when it is touched, you switch the pages to the one that would come up then.

Decide how many levels of decision you will have in your app. If you make it too deep, it will be a larger app, more complicated and difficult to control in the process. If it is complicated and has too many levels, a user will get bored or run out of time to work with it. Typically an app user will use the app for a very short time each time or once. Think of it this way - someone is in traffic (and should not be on the phone much anyway) or on public transportation of some time. They get to their stop or something happens, they have to get off the phone, so whatever your app is to do, it needs to do quickly and conveniently.