Indie App Devs #18
Weekly tips for indie app developers.
Hello! 👋
Today we’re back with Danijela Vrzan, an indie iOS developer working on her latest app, Nunch, and writing about Swift on her Blog.
Today, Danijela is sharing her tips on how to decide which features are worth adding to your app and which ones to leave out.
Let’s dive in!
Follow her on X/Twitter & LinkedIn and read her Blog.
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Not Every Good Idea Belongs in Your App
When you’re building your own app, you’ll have no shortage of ideas. Some come from your users, some from other apps, and some just pop into your head while you work on something else.
The more I work on my own apps, the more I realize that building a good app isn’t just about choosing what to add. It’s also about choosing what to leave out. Not every good idea belongs in your app.
In this article, I want to share how I decide which features are worth adding to my app and which ones I leave out, or save for later.
Using Your Own App
Building an app for yourself gives you an advantage. You don’t need to guess how someone might use your app because you use it all the time. You notice which features are missing and which ones would improve the overall experience.
It also helps tell the difference between something you would actually use and something that just sounds like a good idea. That doesn’t mean every single decision should revolve around you, but it does help you better understand what matters.
I built Nunch, a calorie tracking app because no other app had the features I needed. I use it every day and have a list of features I need for myself. But, even then, I prioritize highly requested features from my users.
How to Evaluate New Features
Everyone will have ideas for your app. Users will request new features and friends might suggest something you never thought about. Suggestions are great, write them down, especially those you think could use a further refinement and might be worth revisiting later.
Before I add a new feature, I try to step back and evaluate it from a different angle. A feature can sound useful at first, but create more problems than it solves. Asking yourself a few simple questions can help you make better decisions and keep your app focused.
Does It Solve a Real Problem?
The first thing to ask yourself is whether the feature solves a real problem or just sounds nice in theory. A lot of ideas look good on paper, but that doesn’t mean they improve the user experience. If a feature saves time or makes something clearer, it’s worth exploring further.
It also matters where the idea came from. Did it come from repeated user feedback? Did you notice the problem yourself while using the app? Or do you only want to add it because another app has it? The difference matters.
One of the features on my list is streaks, a popular way to gamify an app and encourage people to use it more. But in reality, it doesn’t solve a real problem. That doesn’t mean I’ll never add it, but I’ve postponed it until I find a way to make it genuinely useful for my users without adding unnecessary bloat.
Does It Fit the App?
Even a good feature could be the wrong feature for your app. Ask yourself if the idea fits the product you’re trying to build. Every app needs a boundary. Without it, the app becomes harder to understand, harder to maintain, and harder for users to understand what the app really does.
A feature doesn’t have to be big to feel out of place. If the feature makes the app more confusing, adds a whole new UI layer, or shifts attention away from the main experience, that’s a good sign to stop and re-think.
As an example, Nunch doesn’t have any social features. Things like following other users or adding a community aspect sound interesting, but they would shift the app away from simple calorie tracking. They would also add a lot of extra complexity without improving the core experience, which was one of the main reasons I built the app in the first place.
Is It Worth Maintaining?
A feature is never just the work it takes to build it. After that, you still have to test it, fix bugs, offer support and updates, handle copy changes, and keep ti compatible in the future. Think about the long-term cost before you commit to anything new.
This matters even more for indie developers. One feature can create additional work for months or years. Evaluate the idea from the maintenance costs and decide whether it’s worth it.
One of the highly requested features for my app was a barcode scanner. It makes calorie tracking much easier, but it also means maintaining a large food database and adding a backend. I wanted to avoid that complexity, at least early in the app’s lifetime.
I held off until I found a solution that fit the app better. After doing some research, I realized I could use CloudKit’s Public database without the overhead of having my own backend.
Details That Spark Joy
Michael Flarup is a designer from Denmark and he’s well-known for designing some of the best app icons out there. Recently, I attended one of his talks, Making Things People Remember, where he said: “Take one idea further than feels reasonable”.
I love the idea. Michael called it a “smile-driven development”.
Think about an app you used recently that made you smile. Hidde and Pol built an app called Helm, a better version of App Store Connect. During onboarding, they added a checkbox that let’s you save your login credentials. It does nothing. Once you check it, the copy changes to “Just kidding, Helm will remember you are logged in”.
Add one detail that has no real reason to exist, other than the fact that it’s fun. At least one smile guaranteed.
AI Changes How We Build, Not What We Build
AI makes it much easier to build things faster and it can help with more than just code.
But AI should not make the final product decisions for you. It can help you reason about a feature, but it doesn’t understand your app the way you do. It doesn’t know the long-term costs of maintaining a feature, supporting it, and making sure the app stays focused over time.
AI changes the way we work, but not the responsibility behind the work. It can speed up execution and help us think more clearly, but we still need to decide what’s worth building in the first place.
Conclusion
As indie developers, we wear many hats. We’re product owners, designers, and developers, all at once. That gives us a lot of freedom. But it makes things easier and harder at the same time.
If a feature doesn’t solve a clear problem, fit your app, or justify long-term cost, it probably doesn’t need to be built right now. Having a long list of ideas is great. But it’s important to revisit that list and remove the ones you know don’t belong in your app.
Some of the features in Nunch came from user feedback and weren’t things I originally planned to add. But they fit the app well and genuinely improved the experience.
Stick to your vision, but stay flexible and open to new ideas.
Want to learn more? 👇
Follow her on X/Twitter & LinkedIn and read her Blog.