Look at similar apps (that's normal)

Search your phone's app store for your idea and you will find apps like it. Good. That means people want this, and other people already paid to find out. Nobody expects you to be first. They expect you to be better for your person.

There are many card apps, and new ones every year. That is a good sign, not a bad one: it means collectors and sellers pay for this. Your job in this step is to learn what they expect, and where the existing apps let them down.

Find three

Search words that work, by the kind of app you picked: for a collection tracker, card collection tracker; for a seller's app, card inventory or trading card seller; for a shop app, card shop inventory. Add the name of your game if the list is too mixed.

If an app demands an account before you can see anything, pick a different app instead.

Use each one for ten minutes

Do what your person would do. Add a card you own, find it in the list, look at its value, and look for the collection total. Then look for these, because they decide whether a card app is trusted:

• How you add a card: by typing, by searching a list, or by scanning. How many taps it takes.
• Whether it shows the exact printing: set, card number, language, finish. Or only the card's name.
• Whether you can pick a condition, and whether the value changes with it.
• Where a price seems to come from and how old it is. Is it labelled, or is it a bare number?
• Whether it works without an account, and what it asks for on the first open.
• Whether long card names are cut short with "…".

In your notes, make a section per app:

• App name
• Liked: what felt good or clear
• Annoyed: anything slow, confusing or pushy
• Missing: something your person would want and couldn't find
• First open: what it asked for before you could use it

Read the reviews

1. In the store, tap the app, then scroll down to Ratings & Reviews (App Store) or Ratings and reviews (Google Play).
2. Tap See All or See all reviews. Read five low (1 or 2 star) reviews and five high ones.
3. Write down any complaint that appears more than once. Repeated complaints are a map of what people want.

Ask Claude what it adds up to

Send this message as it is. Then paste your notes as your next message: the three app sections, then the "Who it's for" description.

Paste the three answers into your notes under "Similar apps: lessons".

Clean up

Delete the three apps when you're done.