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4 Comments

Question: Focus on Usability or Functionality first?

Hi IndieHackers,

I'm looking at creating my first mobile app and I was thinking about what the right initial focus should be.

Should I focus on functionality, scoping out all the features I might imagine first and then build an alpha of the rough and ready functionality OR put more emphasis on usability and making an alpha which looks and feels elegant but maybe is incomplete.

I ask this in the context of initial market testing.

To put in more practical terms, should I prepare some kind of no code proof of concept demonstrating the functionality in rough form, OR

Something more akin to high fidelity mockups of the behaviour and usability of the app?

Or is this a false choice?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated. Love to hear what type of tools for either no code app prototype or interactive mockups people might suggest too!

Thanks so much

on March 9, 2022
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    You can't probably build all the features that you want - and you should not to.
    I'd try to build only 2-3 CORE features and spend time on usuability.

    Try to build a Minimum LOVABLE product

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    If you're confident of what you're building, I would suggest to focus on functionality. However, if you want to do user-testing, usability is probably much more useful. From my experience, the first experience with an app creates a strong bias. If the app looks pretty and easy to use, people are willing to check out more, and even suggest some functionalities they would like to have.

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      Thanks @pragyanatvade. This is also what I was thinking. If it's a great experience people will want to engage more.

      I was thinking of creating some high fidelity interactive wireframes to 'tell the story '.

      What would be a good tool to do this with? I've used Invision and Proto.io years ago, would these still be good tools to use now?

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        While I've heard of both of these tools, I have not used either one of them. I've used Figma in the past to show high fidelity screens. At the end of the day, I think you can use any tool you are comfortable using. At this stage of the product, it does not really matter that much.

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