How to develop an award-winning app?

Every app developer would like to create an app that is featured by Apple and wins an award. Here is a case study of our award-winning app – Der Die Das.

The app helps the German language learners to master the 3 articles: der, die and das. It is based on deep insight, German learners are frustrated with how to memorize the articles.

We used consumer research with simple Google forms and recruited German learners from Facebook groups and users were very happy to provide feedback about app concepts. 65% of German learners found it hard or very hard to memorize the articles.

We wanted to build a gamified app that is entertaining, addictive and helps you memorize the rules and we tested different app concepts.

Concept 1: Casino Blackjack

Inspired by Blackjack and Tinder, you can swipe the card in 3 directions whether the article is der, die and das.

Concept 2: Tetris

The words are falling from the sky just like in Tetris and you have to pick the right article before the word falls down.

Concept 3: Balloons

Balloons with the noun on it fly towards the sky and you have to select the right article before the balloons disappeared.

Selecting the design direction of the award-winning app

The winning concept was the Balloon one and we developed 4 distinctive designs to test their appeal among users.

The winning concept was option 4 with the hand-drawn background. We spiced it up with changing the weather and the time of the day and adding animations.

We have also elaborated a concept, called Zoo of the rules, where each rule was embodied by an animal or an object from the zoo to help memorization.

Final game

In the final app, there are 40 hand-drawn rules cards and you can play across beautiful hand-drawn scenery visiting the most iconic places across Germany, Austria and Switzerland:

Brandenburg gate in Berlin

The Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in Germany

The Belvedere Castle in Vienna

Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria

Swiss Alps (Matterhorn)

Results

We were thrilled by the results:

• 25’000 downloads growing with 1’500 more each month
• Selected by Apple under New Apps We Love section
• Winner of Best Mobile App in 2019 at the Swiss MDW competition