Weekly Poll: Do You Judge an App by Its Icon?
Weekly Poll

Weekly Poll: Do You Judge an App by Its Icon?

on January 28th 2011

In addition to being the Editor here at iPhone.AppStorm, I’m also a graphic designer. This means that I’m generally a bit over-obsessive about aesthetics.

One place where this obsession pops up on a daily basis is my app selection. When I’m searching around for an app in the App Store, my first criteria tends to be the design of the icon. I know this is shallow and I’ve seen it lead to complete ignorance of some really great apps, but I almost can’t help it! There’s just no way I can bring myself to click on all the apps with ugly icons, much less download them and display them on my iPhone.

Today we want to know if you share this visual standard. Do you judge an app by its icon? Leave your vote on the right and then let us know about some of your favorite icon designs in the comments below. Some of mine are Evernote, Wikipanion, CSS3Machine and FLUD.


  • Stanley

    It’s subjective, but a thoughtful, well-crafted icon tends to reflect favorably on a developer’s overall product.

  • http://inspirationoverload.org Conor O’Driscoll

    It’s not necessarily that I will reject an app due to its poor icon, but if I’m browsing a page of icons, the good ones will stand out and will be the ones I inspect further.

    Generally, if a developer can be bothered to spend hundreds of dollars/pounds/generic currency on an icon designer, then they are more likely to have put a bit of time into the app itself.

    Also, it would often be the case that the icon designer would be the same person who designs the UI (at least the graphical elements, if not the layout itself), and the UI can have a huge impact on how good an app is.

  • Drdul

    I cannot bring myself to buy an app with an ugly icon. There are already way too many ugly icons out there — I don’t want to encourage even more ugliness. Only a couple of times have I broken this self-imposed rule, but in both cases I made replacement icons which I substitute in the app .ipa package so as to keep any ugliness off my iPhone.

  • http://www.applemanija.com Matija

    Here is a great piece (not mine) on this topic. Must read! http://worship.hr/the-icon-tells-it-all

    Long story short – yes, the icon usually makes all the difference. It reflects the care and knowledge put into the app itself.

  • John

    I never buy apps with an ugly icon, nor if the interface is terrible. Altho i often buy apps i dont really need because the icon and interface is well designed. Calcbot for example. Bought it and never used it :p

    • Brian G.

      CalBot has easily replaced the default calculator on my iPhone.

  • Martin

    I certainly judge an app by it’s icon.
    When I browse the appStore, I often stumble upon nice apps that lacks a nice icon.
    But I miss 10 times as many apps, simply because the icons don’t look appealing..

  • http://bit.ly/f3O0ZP wattscreative

    I absolutely do, but it goes without saying!

    As a web & ui designer, if the icon (the first thing you see) isn’t polished, I don’t tend to hold much hope for the interface being any good either!

    An app is all-encompassing and any element that hasn’t had the right care and attention sends the wrong impression!

    If you can’t get the icon right, get someone who can!

  • http://techinch.com/ Matthew Guay

    Icons definitely say a lot about the app, and I’m really picky about wanting apps with beautiful icons. One I really love on my iPod Touch is Express for WordPress. Its icon is absolutely gorgeous! Expenditure is a close second, along with all of Tapbots icons.

    Funny thing is, I’m not too fond of the iWork app icons on iPad. The blue-grey background just takes away from the base Pages, Keynote, and Numbers icons. Otherwise, though, there’re just about hands-down the best apps on iPad.

  • http://web.appstorm.net Jarel Remick

    I judge an app by its icon about the same as I judge a web app by its landing page design; if it’s poor, the app tends to follow suit. I’ll still usually give an app a chance though.

  • vlad

    I love Tumblr app icon. I don’t use Tumblr at all, but I keep it because of the nice icon. ConverterTouch has a nice icon too.

  • http://www.appforthat.de Julia Altermann

    I agree with most of the above commenters. I’m not “reading” a page on the app store, I’m scanning it and being a designer myself, well designed icons catch my eyes.

    It isn’t necessarily true that a badly designed icon is an indicator for a badly designed UI (even though in my experience it’s often the case), but a well designed icon doesn’t necessarily indicate a great UI either (if the icon was designed by a professional and the app was designed by a programmer, for example).

    Overall, I do believe though that developers need to invest time and money into their icons. If they don’t catch the users attention, they won’t be bought and all the work will have been for nothing. I mean, if you go to a job interview, you dress up nicely and try to make the first impression as positive as you can so you have the chance to present more of yourself … for me, it’s the same with app presentation.

  • http://talshafik.com Tal

    I nearly bought Percolator solely for the icon.

  • http://www.appsplit.com Hussein

    A well thought out and designed icon tells me that the developer cares about user experience and appeal of the app.

  • Caetano Brasil

    I have at least ten or twelve apps just for the beatyfull icons. It’s a obsession, for me too! Good icon design may be a reference of a good UI design, so I just don’t buy ugly apps, doesn’t matter how good it can be. Icons are the face of the apps.

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  • http://www.bleap.blogspot.com bob

    Can’t help but judge an app by it’s icon, that seems to be all you get. when is someone going to create an app store that is easier to search for specific functions. tell me how to access the entire directory of apps in the store and i will do it myself.

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