As a custom app development shop, our answer to client questions is almost always yes. Can you build social login? Yes. Can we add @mentions? Yes. Private Messages? Yes. Camera effects? Yes. Yes. Yes. Software development in 2018 is more powerful than ever, and so is the temptation to add all sorts of bells and whistles to your app. But should you? No. Because what you don’t build is just as important as what you do. The concept of oppositional forces is pretty common in other design disciplines, but much less so in UI/UX design. For example note the deliberate use of negative space in these popular logos, including FedEx’s famous arrow. Music is another example, where the silence is every bit as important as the sound itself. In the world of UX design “negative space” takes the form of functional constraints, or all the things you can’t do.  Perhaps the best illustration of this is Twitter, which famously decided to limit messages to just 140 characters. Over time this seemingly arbitrary constraint became the critical seed for a massively popular communication platform. Because make no mistake, we all WANT to write longer messages. But Twitter’s UX forced us to play by their rules, and in doing so created something unique. Facebook offers another great example of leveraging UX constraints. We all know the story- Facebook began as a small shrub living in the shadow of the social networking juggernaut MySpace, which Rupert Murdoch bought for $580 Million in 2005. But Myspace is now essentially worthless while Facebook is valued at $500 Billion. What’s fascinating from a UX standpoint is that Facebook didn’t beat MySpace by doing more, they won by doing less. Specifically, there were two critical UX decisions generally accepted as the reasons why they won the social network war: • Facebook did NOT allow everyone to sign up. At the start they limited accounts to college students only, which gave it a critical sheen of exclusivity and maturity just as MySpace was being overrun with younger kids and spammy content. • Facebook did NOT allow the ability to customize profile pages, allowing for a consistent and clean UI that stood in stark contrast to MySpace’s abrasive user-generated layouts. Instagram offers a more contemporary example; at first I found it frustrating that when re-opening the app, it ditches what you were previously looking at and auto-refreshes to more recent content. For example if you scroll down 20 pictures, when re-opening the app it will jump back to the top of those 20. But over time I came to realize that NOT saving my location and refreshing the content was causing me to compulsively check the app by feeding my “seeker” brain with new content every time. Another fascinating Instagram constraint is the inability to create web links. Hyperlinks are a fundamental currency of the internet, and yet when commenting on Instagram, their UX team has made a very deliberate decision to prevent users from including linked URLs in comments. The only hyperlinks you can create are #hashtags and @mentions. And consider the consequence of that decision: it prevents users from leaving the app and forces the social engagement to remain very basic, both of which work towards supporting Instagram’s primary identity as a lightweight picture based experience. And that’s an important point, because the key to leveraging constraints in UX design is to do so in a manner that strengthens the focus on your app's core identity.  Constraints that work against your core value proposition will be damaging, but constraints that pull users back into your sweet spot are invaluable to your success. A great example of this two-sided UX coin is Snapchat, which became the hottest new app in town by introducing a wonderfully simple constraint: disappearing messages. In a world of oppressively persistent social media, where mistakes we made 10 years ago float into our job interviews, Snapchat offered an oasis of consequence free pictures and video. It was brilliant, and the platform took off like a rocket. But over time temptation crept in, and Snapchat couldn’t resist adding new features that directly contradict the temporary messages which defined their identity. Take for example the “Memories” section which saves your old Snaps so you can repost them again. On the surface this may seem like a neat new tool, but if we dig a little deeper, what is the Memories section doing to their core value proposition of not saving messages? It obliterates it. I could elaborate further (public stories!) but the bottom line is that over time Snapchat added new functionality that undermined the key ephemerality constraint that defined their platform. If you go find a millennial and ask them why they like Snapchat, most likely they will mention Snapchat's awesome face filters, because the mental model of disappearing messages has been almost entirely eroded. Certainly they won't know why the logo is a ghost. And not coincidentally, Snapchat is currently in crisis- numbers have leaked showing adoption has started to flatline. The easy explanation is to blame Instagram for brazenly ripping off Snapchat’s stories, but that view overlooks the many ways in which Snapchat removed its own key constraints and evolved itself into basically the same service as Instagram. Instagram could never have competed with Snapchat if the playing field was privacy and disappearing content. There are many more examples of this, including Twitter's recent decision to double their character limit to 280, but I'll take my own advice now and wrap this up. The key takeaway for UX designers and product developers is to ask yourself: What are my key constraints? And do I offer any functionality that could be removed to improve focus on my product's core value?

An aspect of artificial intelligence (AI) research, machine learning is focused on the process by which computers improve at performing tasks by exposure to data rather than by specific programming. Algorithms are constructed to allow the machine to collect and analyze data, comparing large numbers of examples to discover patterns. This allows the machine to draw conclusions and learn from its accumulated experience in order to predict results in new data. The result? “Instead of people writing software, we have data writing software,” says Jen-Hsun Huang, Chief Executive of NVIDIA, a firm that makes chips for AI systems. This hasn’t only led to change in research and software development, but also to the daily lives of people across the planet. Read on to discover the greatest implications of machine learning for mobile applications. Commonplace AI AI is already a part of our day-to-day experience. Over the past decade or two, consumers have become accustomed to seeing the results of machine learning in the form of recommendations from online retailers, or music streaming and video services based on the user’s previous searches, purchases, and ratings. Machine learning is used for many other commonplace applications such as search engines, identifying and blocking spam email, detecting text in a foreign language and providing a translation, or recognizing unusual activity to detect potential credit card fraud. The progress made in this area provides a foundation for advanced uses of the technology, from revolutionary self-driving cars and drones to medical diagnostics, legal research, and financial advising. Practical Applications In December 2016, Bank of America Merrill Lynch published Robot Revolution – Global Robot & AI Primer  with the goal of “setting out the challenges and opportunities offered by robots and AI.” The paper outlines the potential economic effects that may result from the increasing use of robots and AI, as well as possible investment opportunities. It demonstrates the massive scale of AI’s influence and projected growth over the next several years. They estimate that by 2020, the AI and robotics market will expand to $153 billion, up from $58 billion in 2014. The Internet of Things, which includes physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items which are connected to and can exchange information over the internet, will play a big part in this. While some of this market consists of industrial uses for AI and robotics, a significant portion of the market is expected to be made up of business, home, and personal uses like mobile applications. A Pocket Full of AI Neural networks are designed to mimic the structure and function of neurons and their connections in the human brain. They are used in many familiar applications that rely on machine learning such as voice recognition software, Facebook’s facial recognition software for photo tagging, and Snapchat lenses, to name but a few. Until recently, machine learning relied on massive computing power, which required a connection to a server with enough energy to handle the load. Mobile applications have been limited by this need to use cloud-based servers in order to function. However, new technology is beginning to change this. In 2016, researchers at MIT announced that they had designed a new chip to implement neural networks that is 10 times more efficient than existing mobile processors. This will allow mobile devices to run AI algorithms internally without connecting to the internet. The offline process saves time and energy and means much more powerful apps can be created to use on mobile devices. Speech recognition and language translation applications are already being developed, with other types of apps sure to follow. Endless Possibilities Once machine learning applications no longer have to connect to the internet to function, the variety and utility of available apps is likely to expand rapidly. An examination by Deloitte University Press concluded that machine learning applications will soon be found in every industry, and will feature one or more of the following capabilities: An analysis or diagnosis of sensory data Perceptual interfaces or interactivity Navigation and motion control These new apps could include personal health monitoring, augmented and virtual reality, drone piloting, presentation capabilities, and more. The ability to provide personalized information to an individual while navigating a city street, retail store, airport or museum will surely be of interest to advertisers or the curators of such spaces. Progress in machine learning is made thick and fast, so it’s never too early to start considering new applications that could enhance your life and business.

So you built, or want to build, an app. Obviously the creation of a successful app involves many moving parts and a multitude of steps. The research, planning, hours and effort required add up to a helluva process - but that’s only half the battle. To fully bring your idea to life there is an important final touch you can’t forget - user acquisition. Given the competitive mobile app market, gaining usership can be a battle. With over 2,000 new apps published every single day, you better plan ahead and get your marketing act together if you don’t want to end up with a dead app. You worked way too hard for that. Now that we have you a little rattled, don’t panic - there’s plenty you can do to get noticed. Start with social media. For example, you can easily set up advertising such as a pay-per-install campaign on Facebook. Find out what tweeters are tweeting and get your hashtags rolling. While you do that, here’s a few tips that will help you get the visibility you need to get those coveted downloads and industry buzz: Learn and Master ASO You’ve heard about SEO and know what a pain in the ass it can be. ASO is certainly not the same thing, but a game you must play if you want downloads. App Store Optimization, ASO, is the sprint to get your app visibility in app store search rankings. Tools such as App Annie or SearchMan are helpful to manage and monitor your soon-to-be-climbing ASO. Keywords are important in ASO, so be sure to carefully think about the title and description you put together. Think about what kind of search the user you’re targeting will type. For example if you were marketing Pandora, you would want to include keywords such as “online radio,” “free streaming,” or “music playlist.” Get inside your audience’s head and figure out what they will search to try and get to an app like yours. Word-of-Mouth Never, under any circumstances, underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. Get your friends and family to download your app and ask them to spread the word. Even better, ask for their feedback and make the changes they suggest. Few people are going to care more about your success than your friends and family, and fewer still will give you the honest feedback you need to improve. Mom may not be the savviest app user, but she’s not afraid to give it to you straight. Utilize the Blogosphere Bloggers are always looking for a hot topic to muse about. Guess what? Your app is a hot topic and damn straight they should be talking about it. Tech bloggers not only love to get their hands on the latest technology, but vie to be the first ones publishing their witty thoughts on it. Comb through tech publications, find out where the early adopters chat, and fire away offering first time access to your app. Writers eat that up. Keep in mind, while you may not have a ton of control over this, do what you can to coordinate publication releases at or around the same time. What this does is hits the Internet like a charging horse, click-a-clacking across the information highway to maximize hype and improve results. And hey, you’re a patron of the internet too - get involved yourself. Comment on the blogs, share on social media, be interactive and boost that buzz. Become a Student of Your Users Listen. L-I-S-T-E-N. Was that not clear? Listen to the users who took the time to download your app. People are happy to provide feedback because they want products they want (see what I did there). If you can fashion your app to something users really want, they’ll tell their friends and increase their own usage. Don’t be surprised if they may have some pretty radical requests. Keep an open mind. While your vision for the app is certainly brilliant, try not to hold too tightly to these original ideas. There may be great suggestions outside the round-one-dev-box that can take your app places you never thought of. Ratings and Reviews Plug in functionality that asks users for ratings and reviews. Users don’t really care what you have to say about your app and what it can do. Users care what other users think and listen to their peers far more than you. Apptentive is a great app to get started with this. Ask users for reviews and again, listen. Make the changes that affects common use cases as quickly as possible. The Internet is instant, it lives in your users’ pockets and purses. They are not a patient bunch and will speedily move on if dissatisfied. Keep Users Happy This is a no-brainer and a theme you may have picked up on. But seriously - keep users happy. ASO also looks at user behavior such as discard rate (how often an app is deleted), ratings, download counts and frequency of use. Ensuring your app is something they really want will increase their use of it, and encourage them to tell their friends how great it is. If you can keep your users happy they will have no reason to delete your app and rate it highly. Happy users are the gold to go after in your marketing campaign. Publishing your app and getting people to use it can certainly be overwhelming - but you can do it. Mobile users want you to make their lives easier with a new fantastic app. Get the word out there, actively listen, and build a happy user base.