I wanted to make a few notes to those developers who want their apps to have the same brand-overpowering ‘custom’ experience across operating systems.
First, you’re creating an experience for a specific operating system. Each OS has their own specific, special interaction model. For example, all three mobile OSes implement the ability to go back in an application, but they each do it differently.
You’re building for the user, not your brand. 99% of users will not have an iPhone, Nexus, and Lumia next to each other comparing each platform’s app. In fact, it’s probably just you, as a developer, and you shouldn’t be doing interface comparisons on completely different systems anyway. It’s bad practice.
Developers need to stop making their applications about them when it’s about the user. Your experience should not be vastly different from the rest of the device. There’s probably a reason they chose to use that device, so you’re basically giving them the shaft. That’s not a way to make users happy.
The Web has made developers think they can customize their native applications to the point they’ve been removed from the OS itself and what the user is expecting. Once again, the Web is not native, and native apps are not Web sites.
So, in summary:
- Design your app to look and behave like a core application on the user’s operating system. It should say ‘iOS’ (or whatever you’re developing for), not ‘[Your Brand Here]’. You already have someone using your app, you don’t need to keep selling it to them. It will annoy them.
- You aren’t the user. You’ve heard it before, but apparently some people need to hear it again.
- Don’t go against the grain or break the host OS’s interaction model because you don’t like it. That’s not a good enough reason.
- Don’t use a custom font for anything in the UI. The system font across all three platforms—Windows, iOS, and Android—have been designed for readability and consistency. Breaking that is jarring to the user. It’s a bad idea.
- Don’t make the user’s experience of their own phone inconsistent.