The wonderful hats we know you’ll want to wear when working on an app

The personality of the wearer and the hat makes the hat

- Philip Treacy, Hat Designer.  

In our opening insight we took a brief look into the role of research before building an app and how that informs the type of team you might gather.One of the most satisfying aspects of creating an app is seeing how to put all the content you need inside your offering and take it out directly to consumers across the world.

In our direct work with clients, whether it be one person or a small team, we enjoy thinking with them how we can set up these unique project and gather everyone around to work on them.  With our software as a service Wunderbox we love to free people from worrying about the code base structure of apps and instead leave them to get on with publishing and organising their wonderful content inside it.

While projects can vary depending on the type of content you are working on, there are a number of fantastic hats one should consider wearing in the app development cycle. With these hats appearing at different stages like magic,  they really give you the chance to understand what ultimately lies behind you making a great success of your new kids app:

The Flag Holder Hat

A hat to wear for all your decision making and steering the project day by day is one you’llbe wearing much of the time. This hat is especially critical at the start and end of the development cycle - to make decisions where a consensus cannot be found, but needed during this tight schedule of work. This hat can also champion the app project internally to all the stakeholders, preparing the way for its arrival.

The Market Dancer Hat

Often forgotten in kids app projects is marketing . Rather like giving a child, who can't read, a picture book, involving marketing early in the production line can make sure many different avenues are explored in visualizing the app in the marketplace and how to market it. This may include thinking about key events and campaigns for the first launch and the first few quaters of its release.Once the app is out on store an intricate analysis of the apps icons and downloads and performance come into play.

Digital marketing today must include a forensic analysis of the KPIs - so that you can see masrket reactions to campaigns or changes you make within the app’s strutcure.This is crucial to the trajectory and growth of an app - so expect to see more from us on this soon - details matter here greatly.

The Dapper Design Hat

Design for any app is at the core of its USP, and with a target audience of kids, you can never overestimate this. So many opening questions might float up here:

• Is it always better to make everything brighter just because it is for kids?

• Why do you think kids will want to use this, above a service like YouTube?

Many of your design questions may have been answered during any research stage and but thinking visually is so important for the app’s lifetime, so that it continue to feel as fresh as the day it was born.

The Rights Magician Hat

Digital rights ownership of all the content in the app is always worth looking into. It is especially important when it comes to multimedia; especially where artists and writers are involved to work out who needs to be compensated for app usuage. This also allows you to decide whether any new content needs to be commissioned during the building phase of the app.

While these different hats can present anyone with obvious new challenges, all of them together keep the project and your ideas on track for the delivery of a great app on time. Setting a time-line of key moments in its production will help you see how each of these hats help you constantly question yourself and write clear and simple project scope statements with all the deliverables and resources needed to achieve them linked carefully within each part. You will need to spend some time looking into these different areas and making sure your content is showcased there in the most compelling way, in the way utimately only you want it to be.

In July, we will take a further look into the most crucial post production stage of the app  - How to market it with measurable success and for you to build a sustainable business around your investment.