What to remember and how to think to create an emoji app?

Nowadays, it is getting more and more obvious that the existence of emoji is one of the most popular topics discussed by those who are interested in creating something new that can make a valuable contribution to the cyber development industry. As a result, the idea of creating a custom emoji app is becoming more popular, which consequently leads to a lot of specific questions aimed at the use of special techniques to make your own emoji app.

To be honest, it is quite obvious that wanting to create an emoji keyboard is not a new thing at all. Needless to say, the first emotional sign that was used by users was created in 1982 by Scott Fahlman. As a result, we can conclude that developers and common users found out that one of the issues with online messages is the absence of emotion, which sometimes makes it really difficult to understand the person you are chatting with.

These days, a lot of people want to create their own emoji app, so I will give you guidelines on how to build an emoji app for iOS or Android. Moreover, I will also provide you with a piece of history on the creation of an emoji app and explain the weaknesses of the modern emoji industry.

WHY EMOJIS AND STICKERS ARE A HUGE INDUSTRY

As I stated earlier, one of the main problems of using messengers and the internet as a medium for conversations between people is the absence of the real emotions, which you can show with emojis. However, this problem was eliminated by the japanese. The very first emoji keyboard, which allowed one to make their own emoji, was created with the release of the Japanese Romaji Keyboard. However, that was the very first step in the process of developing an emoji keyboard app, which later gave life to another more developed and stronger resources.

This resource was iOS 4, which is actually not really strange. Because Apple development team was receiving a lot of letters from Japanese users asking for the introduction of a special emoji keyboard, the new version of iOS was released with emojis. Due to the popularity of emojis, almost 70% of users all over the world tend to show their complicated emotion by using emojis instead of actual words.

Maybe after the moderate introduction to the history of the whole industry of emoji, you are curious and want to know how to build an emoji keyboard app on your own, plus you already have several questions related to that topic. Now I will describe the most essential features and elements that act as a set of must-haves for any developer interested in creating an emoji app.

WHAT TO REMEMBER TO BUILD AN EMOJI KEYBOARD APP

Frankly speaking, the development of emojis or custom stickers for your app is not easy, and could take a lot of time. This is because the majority of the process is dedicated to drawing these faces and thoughts on those ideas that could be really interesting to the users. For instance, a good example of the fact that you have to be inventive to create something good, which is linked to the emotions of people, could be seen in the development of stickers by Telegram. For example, they have various stickers of the historical characters with various grimaces. Moreover, while discussing the topic of custom stickers development, it is important to mention that the use of them is a pretty nice idea because stickers are usually much bigger than classical emojis, which makes them perfect for those that are willing to make all the elements of their keyboard more fancy. Besides, the use of stickers gives you a great opportunity to experiment a lot because the bigger the canvas, the vast are the opportunities of an artist. So never underestimate stickers, but try to focus more on them rather than on emojis. I hope that you have learned why you should use stickers and the benefits you derive from them.

Read also: What to Do if You Have an App Idea?

Three rules to create an emoji keyboard app

There are three golden rules to implement for the successful development of stickers or emoticons. This will definitely make your product unique if you follow these rules during the development of your keyboard. The rules are:

• Functionality;
• Simplicity;
• Usefulness;

Describing all of the rules in detail would amount to writing several books. However, here, we are going to observe them in general and see all of the elements in a pretty basic and elementary level. Furthermore, when we want to create an emoji for iPhone or Android, it is more suitable to rely on imagination rather than strict rules.

Anyway, the first thing we will talk about is, for sure, functionality. You may think that emojis do not have anything to do with such term. However, it is not true. If you turn on your iOS or Android device and take a look at the keyboard of emojis, while surfing through the images, you will see that there are dozens of useless images like police cars, pills, shower, lipstick, digits and many other things you have never used. This is why functionality is pretty important. So you have to create emojis that will be useful to people and can be implemented in any situation. The next term is usefulness. As was already mentioned, there are lots of useless emojis, however, we have to also mention that there are even those among the faces of people, which even they show emotion, remain highly unclear to the users. So as a result, people do not really know when and where to use these stickers or emoticons.

Then, we do not have to forget about simplicity. Yes, it is a pity that now people want everything really simplified, from books they read to the ways of showing the emotions they use. But in case your aim is to solve the issue regarding how to make an emoji app, such truth of life should be taken for granted. So let us say that your emoji keyboard has to be as simple as only possible. Moreover, it should open in less than 5 seconds because according to statistics, users tend to leave an app if it does not open in more than 5 seconds.

What are the good examples?

When we are talking about the creation of a good cyber product, we have to take a look at a more successful product all the time to see which technologies and strategies were used by the developers of those products. Examples of such application, when it comes to the development of an emoji app, are Animated Emoji Pro and Stick Texting. Both of these applications have shown a huge interest in the real needs of the users. Moreover, we can even say that they have been following all of those three golden rules in the process of creating the emoji applications.

Furthermore, let us also mention that they offer to a user a wide range of special images and faces, which he or she is able to use. Besides, we have to mention that the shape of these images is pretty schematic and not really complicated, which automatically means that in the creation of an emoji, it is not so important to draw all the details. However, in the case of creating stickers, that statement is still valid. Anyway, in order to understand the main technologies and the flows of thought, which became the foundation of the creation of other popular applications and keyboards, I strongly advise you to download several paid/freemium emoji apps and take a look at not only the interface and the emojis themselves but also at User Experience technologies and other nuances.

In the very end of the passage, I would like to mention that the use of animated emojis is also really nice. You have to remember that just after switching the type of file from PNG to GIF, you can change the structure of an application. Thus, if you want to develop an Android emoji app or develop an iOS emoji app, one of the wisest decisions may be the implementation of animated stickers and emoticons, which will make the process of the transition of emotions more interesting and interactive. However, you have to understand that using branded emojis is pretty complicated and you have to know some tricks to overcome the machines of App Store and Google Play.

WHICH TECHNOLOGIES TO USE?

When you are curious about how to develop an emoji app, one of the main points is, of course, the use of special technologies that will allow you to achieve your dream. It may sound surprising, but here everything is pretty simple. The only thing you really need is proper programming skills, which will help you to deal with future complications, while other points are just minor details, which we are going to discuss briefly.

First of all, apart from your knowledge of programming, you need a good programming platform. Personally, I believe that to achieve such a goal you have to use the Bluecloud programming environment, which will allow you to operate with absolutely different and unusual functions, use them as the foundation for all the options and build your key icons and images upon them.

Another good point is the use of a proper ASO, which will help you to promote your product. This is because there are too many pretty strong competitors in the same field on the App Store and Google Play. Because of this complexity, it is really important to have several tricks in your toolkit, which may help you become a top-notch leader of the rate.

Read also: Google Play or Amazon Appstore