Can You Love or Hate Your Apps?

An old friend of mine recently asked me a question that I had never really considered before. Is it possible for people to have an emotional attachment to software’

Talking about emotions, I’ll keep it concise and only mention arguably the two most common forms, and the ones that happen to contrast the most. Love and hate. Although these are strong words, I’ll use them purely as synonyms to refer to positive and negative emotions a user may have towards apps. Are there any apps out there that I love’ I know there are certainly apps that I hate. There are even apps that I use on an everyday basis that I have a love / hate relationship with. Is this the same for everybody else who uses iOS and Mac devices every day’ Whether it be for work or for enjoyment - regardless of you being a “casual user” or someone who spends almost their entire day in front of screens of varying size.

Apps, or software isn’t usually something that comes to mind when you think about people connecting to something emotionally. Perhaps this is because they aren’t things that are tangible or physical, where you could certainly say users have an emotional attachment to their iPad or iPhone for example. But without apps, these devices would merely be well designed, expensive paperweights.

So what would the factors be for someone to “love” an app’ It simply could be down to what that app does. It could be a medium to keep them in touch with their friends and family such as Facetime or Path, boiling it down to the device’s original purpose - for communicating. Perhaps it could be an app that has proven invaluable to their every day lives like Clear or 1Password. An app that can be used for fun like Paper, or a tool that allows people to work like Xcode or Sketch. Aside from the function, there are other elements to an application that could influence a user’s emotions. Design being one of them, much like someone might have an attachment with a piece of art. It does not matter if the app is ‘flat’, or uses elements of realism in its aesthetic. What matters is that it looks and feels great to use. A simply designed, well polished application could be the defining difference in a category of apps that is pretty saturated and the reason why users would chose to use it ahead of anything else. As with software design on the whole, it goes far beyond the surface of just how it looks. How does it behave’ Does it meet our expectations as users’ What about the animations that might charm us and stand out enough for us to notice them’ Or the sounds of an app that might make us smile’ The discoverability of features and shortcuts, or even hidden extras such as bonuses or Easter eggs’

But for the reasons some people might “love” an application, others might “hate” them. Users might not want annoying sounds getting in their way from using the app, or conflicting with the music they may happen to be listening to at the same time. The app might have crazy or broken interactions that prove frustrating to use or it might not have the exact set of features the user expects. Of course, the app could be well designed but implemented badly, causing it to be buggy or to crash which will just anger the user, which from personal experience, has led me to ‘rage quit’ or delete the app from my system.

When designing interfaces, you not only want to make sure the app you’re designing is functional, and usable but it’s essential that it’s a joy to use too. In an ideal world, you want to completely immerse the user into your app so they forget that they’re interacting with a computer. Make things like your application’s copy more human and less like “HAL” from 2001: A Space Odyssey for example. Whilst still very automated, Siri is perhaps the most anthropomorphic example of an app out there on iOS where it tries to connect with the user and even displays humanistic traits such as humour. Whilst this understandably can “freak” some people out for the first time when they use it, it breaks a literary ‘wall’ that their device can interact with them too, instead of it being completely one way. Because of this, it might just encourage people to use Siri on their iOS devices rather than avoid using it completely. Give an app a personality and your users will perhaps look at it in a different light and view it as not just “another app”.

So to answer my friend’s question, yes. It’s entirely possible to have an emotional attachment to software. Gauging an emotional response from users both positive and even negative is certainly better than getting no response at all. It is always going to be an impossible task to be able to please everybody, but if you can get one person to “love” using your app, then you know you have done something right.

I’d be really interested to hear what are some of the apps that you love, or even ones you hate by leaving a comment below or reach out to me on Twitter.