Emailing developers

I wanted to look into what makes app's the most engaging via features/interfacing.
I emailed the developers of the apps I thought were the best of what I tested as I figured these practitioners would know the most important traits to have in a engaging app. I phrased the question:

When making an app what do you think are the 3 most important aspects that create an engaging experience for the user?

I used this question as it would box there answer into a frame work were it would be easiest to compare their answers. I messaged 4 people the creators of: Way to Go, Inspirit, Bloom and Patatap. I got 3 responses these are the simplified versions of them:

Vincent Morisset -> Way to Go

- A great story and / or universe. It’s all about generating emotions.

- It needs pacing, surprises. How you work with time is crucial.

- A meaningful and rich interactivity where we create a visceral connection between the spectator/user and the piece. 

Peter Chilvers -> Bloom

-as little” interface" as possible. Ideally, the user should be able to discover an app’s features through exploration alone,

-I think another major factor is to limit the options to only the ones the user really needs

-Perhaps the most important aspect of Bloom’s appeal is that it hit a sweet spot where the user’s input was balanced with the artists’.

Jono Brandel -> Patatap , caroline

I would say the 3 most important things I was considering are that it be: inviting, easy, and playful. 

These were really interesting answers and they all made sense considering were they came from.

What I took from these responses is the importance of how the audience interact with my app which will come down to the UI design. It is far too easy to spoon feed the user how the app works which would take away all the intrigue. From this I plan to only instruct the very basics about how to use the app then letting the audience work the rest out for themselves. I was wrestling with the idea of including character but Vincent's thoughts on it and also the results of my second app test proved to show that the use of character and loose "narrative really helps users engage with the app its self. The feedback from these three practitioners did not come at a huge surprise but has definitely highlighted key features when it comes to my UI and content design.