Project 1 - Analysing App Reviews

Stuff Online iPhone App Reviews

In order for me to write an app review for the magazine, I needed to look at reviews that already exist produced by the magazine. I looked online as well as in the actual magazine to help me with the written content and get a feel of the tone of voice that is used and how they approach reviewing apps. I found that they use quite a chatty tone, but is still kept quite formal and are always aided with images. They appear to point out all the positives rather than the negatives on the apps, which in a way promotes them to the reader. All reviews offer a star rating and are a reasonable length, so that the reader doesn't get bored, but has enough information to explain the app.  The link directs to the app reviews section of the Stuff website.

In the magazine, I analysed the layout used.

The App Guide was sectioned into 10 different colour coded categories, like the one pictured above, Sports Fanatic, which would be the category that my app would feature under. Each had a section title page as shown on the left.

The app reviews were very short and to the point, picking out their USPs in a few sentences, followed by a star rating. Each review stated the cost of the app, the available platforms, as well as the app name and a single image that demonstrates the app. Most had 5 apps to a page, with one of the five dominating the page with a larger image and longer review. The backgrounds were kept very minimal to let the apps stand out on the page.

This is an example of one of the app reviews. I plan to copy this layout as accurately as I can when superimposing my own app review to make it look as realistic as possible.