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How do We Make Android Apps as Good as iOS Apps?

Funshine Weather app screenshot, showcasing some of the design considerations described below, like high contrast images, simple designs, familiar icons, and buttons within reach at the bottom of the screen.iOS apps are just better than their Android counterparts. I thought about showing a bunch of screenshots here of App Store listings vs Google Play listings for the same app, showing how the iOS apps are always rated higher, but I don’t want to call anyone out. Just take a peek at your company’s apps, maybe look at a few others, and get back to this afterwards.

Rough, right? Apps that may be 4.5 or higher on the App Store hover around the 3.5 mark on Android, especially at smaller companies and startups. Why does this happen? To be fair, part of it does come down to rating algorithms and general attitude. iOS users are more likely to pay for apps, more likely to engage with developers, and more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt, as a result. There’s a certain “sunk cost fallacy” at play there. You pay more, so you expect more, and when things go wrong, instead of being mad, you justify your purchase by assuming the issue is a fluke.

However, multiple reviewers and even a few studies have come to the conclusion that users prefer iOS versions of apps to their Android counterparts. In my personal experience, this comes down to navigation, UI consistency, “smoothness,” and a perception of quality that comes from those items. Apps across iOS all act and feel very similar, and that’s not true on Android. On top of that, devices are very different, with aspect ratio differences, feature differences, and OS differences between Android devices that just isn’t a problem on iOS. So what can an Android developer or product manager do to make sure their app is perceived as nice as iOS apps? Step one? Forget iOS.

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Another New App: Tippette!

Tippette: Tipping Made Simple

 

This had been an idea for an app I’ve been sitting on for a while. A tip calculator is a simple thing, an easy app to make (this one took about a day). So why didn’t I have a good one? Why did so many of them have overly complicated interfaces, pop-up ads, or ask you to enter the percentages yourself? Why didn’t any take into consideration that you often have to split a bill multiple ways, and you want to figure out how much to put down?

Tippette was my way of cutting through all of that. The only time you have to enter a number is when entering the total. From there, you use sliders to split the check and another slider to rate your service. That’s it. You don’t have to think about percentages at all. I went with a simple scale.

Tippette: Tipping Made Simple

  1. Worst service ever: 10% (because you should always tip, even when it’s horrendous).
  2. Bad service: 15%
  3. Okay service, average service: 18%
  4. Good service: 20%
  5. The best service: 23%

I scaled this in such a way that people would be more likely to rate their service as good or best, as the jump in percentages isn’t too high. I wanted that balance between someone putting down a large tip for the server and not feeling like they were just throwing money down unnecessarily.

I personally have never been a server. But I know how important tipping is in the U.S. Service industry workers are often paid well below the minimum wage and rely on tips. Because of that I wanted to encourage people to see 18% as the average tip, not an exceptional one, and target 20% for good service.

 

So, if you want an easy to use tipping app that’ll make your servers love you, be sure to check out Tippette!

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What’s that? A New Page? Introducing Published Apps!

Ticky Tacky Toey Header image, with the name of the app and an X and OI finally got enough free time to sit down without a project at hand. I decided to try something new: make an Android app from scratch. But, let’s face it, free time is precious. Most of my side projects are huge, big things that I won’t complete for months. What’s a gal to do?

I decided to set my sights on a simple app. Getting back to my roots, I wanted to make it a game. I started programming making games, whether it was blackjack for my Casio calculator so I wouldn’t be so bored in study hall (it used a version of BASIC!), or working on a Zelda-like MMORPG, games were always my primary focus.

So, I settled on Tic-Tac-Toe.

Ticky-Tacky-Toey app icon, an X and an O, overlapping, with a vertical gray bar from top right to bottom left.You can now find my new app, Ticky-Tacky-Toey on the Google Play store! I’ll admit, it took about as much time to set up a Google Play publishing account and publish this thing (needlessly complicated process there, Google), but I did it! I completed a side project. Take that, programmer stereotypes!

First pannel: Man thinking, building a house out of cinder blocks. "There we are, nearly done. Just a few more hours and this thing will be up and running..." Second pannel: "Oh, wait," he exclaims, "I just had an idea..." Third pannel: Thinking, "Let's try out that new framework, just for fun." Fourth pannel: He's building a house of wood. Final pannel: Friend comes along, says "Starting another side-project, are we?" Original guy responds, "Yeah... well no actually, I've nearly finished the other one so I just wanted to test out this other thing." In the background, half-finished houses litter the landscape.
Via CommitStrip.com

Now, with a page and far too few apps on it, I’ll just have to keep working!

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How I Got Into Software Engineering (And You Can Too!)

I’ve spoken about this twice now at a fantastic program here in NYC, BridgeUp. They help girls continue their interest in STEM, finding a place that is supportive of their love of science. They educate, help them grow, and send these girls off to college having already completed some college-level courses, ready to tackle any programming assignment their professor throws at them. It’s because of this fantastic program, and the reactions I got while speaking at it, that I decided to write this post here.

Women used to be more prevalent in computer science. In fact, we were the majority. Ada Lovelace published the first computer program, and is credited with being the first programmer. Not the first female programmer, the first programmer. The original “computers” were the women who did rapid calculations on the battlefield, helping commanders position and aim artillery.

Eventually we automated those tasks, and those “computers” started working with the silicon kind. Women dominated computer science. From inventing the first programming languages to sending us to the moon.

But women were pushed out of the industry when it became a consumer good. Suddenly, businesses needed computers. They needed programmers. And the men who were bosses felt more comfortable hiring men for these high paying positions than women. Eventually, they pushed women out of the industry almost entirely. When computers started entering the household, they were advertised to young boys. In just a decade or two, hundreds of years of computing were lost to the boys.

Growing up, a young girl might not want to go into STEM. She might not think it’s a welcoming place for women. She might be scared off by stories of Uber or Riot Games. When she looks for role models, she’ll find few in the modern era.

But there’s hope. Women’s contributions to computer science, both in the past and today are gaining attention. Programs to reintroduce women to computers have been successful. Role models for young girls pop up every day. Sometimes, I think it’s important to just see a woman coding, just let those young girls know that their gender does not define their role in life. Biology does not dictate who they are, what they can do, or what they’re allowed to like. Video games are fun. Computers are fun. Programming is fun. That fun does not require a person to be of the male gender.

So, with that, I think it’s important to talk about how we get started in programming. It’s not enough to show young girls that they will have other female peers, but also light the path from curious about programming to software engineer.

So here’s my story.

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Side Projects

GitHub contributions graph. It's more sparse than it should be for someone who writes code every day.
My sad GitHub contributions. Would have been nothing but dark green just a few years ago…

When I was younger, everything that mattered was a side project. I would skip homework and studying to work on my newfound love of programming. My grades in high school may have dipped a little.

In college, my professors handed me piles of work. I did most of it. Okay, I did a good portion of it. I always made time for side projects. They weren’t always as fun as the game I built in high school, but everything was built by me in C++ and OpenGL, and I appreciated that low-level feel. Making a game like that was a hoot.

Then I started coding for 8+ hours a day in the “real world.” I made applications, middle ware, backend utilities, tests, and more. It wore me down. I no longer had time for those fun side projects. I came home and wrote a tech blog, the beginnings to novels, even a few episodes for a TV show. Don’t get me wrong, writing is a great hobby, probably my favorite. However, I think it’s about time I get back into side projects, if only so my GitHub page doesn’t look so barren.

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