It is no surprise that web design companies are desperately trying to get into application design. Web design as a business is highly commodified with small margins and a crowded competitive landscape. Even the top early providers are watching their ability to get customers affordably and service them profitably become seriously compromised. Web design companies are scrambling for new opportunities.
At the same time, now that broadband connections are near-ubiquitous and computing has moved beyond the static desktop over to the celltop devices that accompany us through our everyday lives, there is an explosion of software applications. They're all over. Apple's App Store took off and now seemingly everyone is trying to create one. And with these many App Stores, all promising seductive opportunities to cash in, everybody wants to get into the app game. Add in the fact that websites and web/desktop/mobile applications are both presented on computing devices and it is no surprise web design and user experience companies are trying to leap from their relatively simple web design roots into the complex, professional world of application design.
Unfortunately for the customers who are entrusting the design of their powerful, complex apps to upstart digital agencies, the skills and experience necessary to design great apps are dissimilar from those required for websites.
Websites follow a continuum of complexity, from the "websites" provided by web design practitioners, changing into the software applications that require skilled, experienced, specialized providers:
1. Brochureware. Largely static information for basic marketing purposes.
2. Marketing sites. Exists largely for marketing purposes but, unlike brochureware, does have periodic or regular content updates. These are most likely via a content management platform - ranging from blogging software to heavy-duty enterprise CMS.
3. Transactional sites. It is at this level that websites begin to cross the chasm into software applications. These are sites that include transactions such as ecommerce and an interactive online customer service apparatus. While many of these remain websites as opposed to software applications, more complex examples do involve problem solving relevant to real application design.
4. Web applications. These are "websites" whose purpose is to be functional software. People arrive at the destination to do things - not visit the company - and any degree of "website" content, such as About pages, Services pages and the like, are tertiary and only included out of necessity. These can range from very simple, such as something like Twitter, to something highly complex, such as Shutterfly.
Pretty much every time we are in a competitive bidding situation for app design work, at least one of our competitors is a web design company. Because we've always been an app design company we have the track record and experience to consistently defeat these less practiced upstarts. However the trend that these companies, that are flatly not qualified for the work that the customer is considering them for, are showing up in bids against us suggests that there are lots of bids out there that only include web design agencies competing for application design work. That is, there is some large segment of corporations who are bidding out work to people who are wholly unqualified to do it, and turning core parts of their company over to practitioners who have no business doing the work.
This is frightening. Software is increasingly mission-critical to successful business. Customers and employees alike rely more and more on software and apps of various type. Yet companies - and even the "user experience" people inside many of those companies - are not sophisticated enough to discern the chasm between most "web design" and the majority of "application design". A now decades-long tradition of most software being poorly designed threatens to continue through another decade.
If you have an application that needs to be newly created or redesigned, be sure that whomever you are entrusting that work to is qualified and thus likely to make that endeavour a success. To do that, I recommend you ask these very specific and pointed questions to the person or firm you are considering:
1. How many applications have you designed? Make sure the things they are counting are true applications, not websites that happen to have some simple workflows within them.
2. What is the percentage breakdown by hardware platform for those devices? While there is no wrong answer, if a provider has a good, solid percentage of desktop apps you know they are the real deal. If the work is all web and mobile it could be an emperor with no clothes.
3. How many applications have you designed that are as or more complex as the app we need designed? It should be at least half a dozen.
4. What is your experience designing apps in our vertical industry? This is less important, in that good application design is industry-agnostic. However, what you're looking for in their answer is some awareness of your industry, that they understand in some general way the sort of users and interaction problems you may be facing.
5. Based on what you know or have seen of our app, what do you think is the biggest problem with it? Again, there is no one right answer. Here you're listening carefully to decide if they really know their stuff, are bullshitting their way through, or are flatly not qualified. Since you know your business and app so well you should have good radar for converting their answer into insight about their fitness to do the work.
6. How many references can you give us from past customers for whom you've designed apps for that are as or more complex as what we need designed? You want at least three. As a rule of thumb I typically take the initial list I'm given - which is often padded with friends and the very best possible referrals - and then ask for three more names. It is in those three extra names you will get the most balanced appraisal of their capabilities.
Those are enough questions to get you started. What you are looking for is a proven track record of designing apps. Real apps, not websites that they've contorted to present as apps. Utilizing a content management system for a website an app does not make. Having some sort of ecommerce on your website an app does not make.
Your goal should be to truly vet the people trying to get your job or business. If they haven't done it before, ideally much more than once, they shouldn't be anywhere near your apps. Your company deserves better than that.
Designing applications is not a game. While some good web design companies can successfully design simple web apps or mobile apps, which inherently have far less complexity, you need a software or application design company or practitioner to work on your apps. Regardless of what people are out there trying to sell it is actually pretty logical: would you have your lawnmower repairman fix your car? After all, they both have engines. And, gosh darnit, your lawnmower repairman is an absolute wizard with lawnmowers! The answer is obvious: of course not. You need to get your car fixed, you take it to an auto mechanic. So should you put your apps in the hands of people with an extensive proven track record of getting the job done right.