Article Purpose
This article was intended as a checklist that will save your time when you’re struggling with features to add to your mobile app.
In this crib sheet of modern mobile trends, you will get familiarised with a typical list of features, and who knows, you may even take a fresh new look at your application concept.
This article will help you put together a brief (or a full concept outline) to send out to development agencies and get a quote, especially if you don’t have clear-cut requirements yet.
And last but not least, the article will bring clarity by giving you sufficient background to rely on in discussion with your developer.
If you don’t find answers to your questions in the article below, lads from Lemberg with vast experience in UX implementation will be all too happy to advise what is best practice (and what’s not) for a solution or a particular platform.
Real-life Example
Based on the stream of mobile app quote requests Lemberg receive, one can single out and highlight the most typical application building blocks.
Most often when you say “Please quote me for an application that shows user some specific locations around them”, this is not what you ACTUALLY mean, or rather not ALL of it.
See, an app that just shows places near user’s location would:
- be too simplistic
- only have one single feature (now, have you seen many popular one-screen apps?)
- be quite straightforward to build
Not like there is anything wrong with such app as long as it fulfils its purpose, but that can’t be all a user wants, could it?
It’s most often the set of extra features (‘goodies’ that complement the core function of the app like the HP sauce complements your bacon sandwich) that make the app really appealing and super useful, and tempt the end user to download it.
For example, a simple ‘locations around me’ app like the one we are discussing would benefit immensely from additional features, or ‘goodies’, listed in the table below. For clarity, all features are tagged either ‘mandatory’ (those that are implied by the original request), additional ‘important’ features, or ‘nice to have’ goodies.
These are the typical building blocks for such app:
 |
Area Map with Gas Station locations. Application shows gas stations around | Mandatory |
| List of Nearest Gas Stations. Application shows gas stations around. | Mandatory | |
| Particular Gas Station Details. Application shows gas stations around | Mandatory | |
 |
Sign In, Sign Up, Sign Out | Important |
| User Profile | Important | |
| Favourites | Important | |
| Recent | Important | |
 |
Social Sharing. | Nice to Have |
| Settings | Nice to Have | |
| About | Nice to Have | |
| Terms&Conditions | Nice to Have | |
| FAQs | Nice to Have | |
| Contact Us | Nice to Have |
However, depending on the purpose of the app, Important blocks may really be Nice To Have and vice versa, so this is very case-specific
Building Blocks
The list below provides brief overview of possible extra functionality a mobile application can have. Though the list may appear very general, it does not fail to identify functionality you might be after.
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Feature | Technology | Screen | Component |
| Type | User Management |
|---|---|
|
Sign In, Sign Up, Sign Out |
| Social sharing | |
|
Social Login (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) |
|
User Profile |
| Content Management. Generalized. | |
|
Data synchronization |
| Search | |
| Offline Content | |
| Data Backup | |
| Search | |
| Files Download/Upload | |
| Payment | |
| Reports | |
| Interactive User Guide | |
| Wizard | |
|
Content List. News Items, Goods, Video Files, Audio Files etc |
| Category/Filter lists. List similar to News, Music, Politics, Sport etc | |
| Content Details | |
|
Inbound Database |
| Content Management. Specific | |
| |
Weather Forecast |
|
Questionnaires |
| Recent Items | |
| Calendar | |
| Credit Cards Management | |
| Chat | |
| Favourite Items | |
| Content with comments News Item and list of comments under it with possibility to add new comment |
|
| Shopping Cart | |
| Integration with Native Apps for Particular OS | |
|
Integration with Contacts |
| Integration with Calendar | |
| Integration with platform native media gallery | |
| Inapp Purchase - Digital data (downloaded from side servers) | |
| Inapp Purchase - Application functionality extensions (No additional data download) | |
| Licensing service (Android only) | |
| Multimedia | |
|
Camera Photo Capture |
| Camera Video Capture | |
| Video/Audio Playback | |
| Audio Recording | |
| Background sound theme (Requires additional effort on android, easy-to-implement on iOS) | |
| Integration with social networks Load images from particular network |
|
| Image Editors | |
| Image Filters | |
| Audio Editor | |
| Equalizer | |
|
Media Galleries (photo, video, panoramas) |
| 3rd Party Libraries | |
|
Application Usage Analytics |
| Push Notifications | |
| Advertisement | |
| PDF File Generation | |
| Crash Reporting | |
| |
Barcode Scanner |
| Custom UI & View Navigation | |
| |
Custom Widget very generalized item that may identify UI element that is not platform native and has to be implemented. For instance: compass, PIN input etc |
| Charts | |
| Tables | |
| Image Tiling | |
|
SVG Viewers |
| OpenGL | |
| |
Gesture Handling |
|
Application themes |
| Location Services | |
|
Google Maps |
| Apple Maps | |
| Custom Maps for restricted areas like islands, office spaces etc |
|
| Positioning via GPS or Cellular Networks | |
| Location Based Device Profiles | |
| Aggregation of device’s location change | |
| Animated location changes on a map | |
| |
Custom Speedometer |
| Compass | |
| Address Selectors | |
| 3rd Party Device Connectivity | |
|
via Bluetooth |
| via WiFi | |
| Messaging | |
|
XMPP |
| REST | |
| SOAP | |
Summary
Using the above table, you can approximately identify features you would like to see in your mobile app.
The list is not complete and is constantly expanding so that you can have even more building blocks and goodies to choose from.
Feel free to use this ever-expanding list to put together the outline of YOUR APP. Remember, you do have to think over how you want each of these features to work in your app, as you will probably need to explain it to potential developers as a part of your vision of your app and its purpose.
About Lemberg
Lemberg is a UK mobile and web development company with strong client base in the UK, Europe, and the USA.
Starting from 2007, Lemberg has been helping leading design and marketing agencies, start-ups, innovative businesses deliver brilliant digital solutions for a number of the world’s biggest brands.
Our goal is to go beyond clients’ expectations: as a technology partner, we take the responsibility for implementing the most ambitious, creative and innovative ideas.