Case Study: AppApp achieves instant, mobile-friendly faceted App Store search with Algolia

Bringing Algolia’s faceting experience to mobile the evolution of AppApp

AppApp, an independent iOS App Store search engine built on Algolia’s faceting, wanted to bring the desktop instant-search faceting experience to mobile. The challenge was fitting touch-friendly faceting into small screens without losing instant feedback or the ability to show full-width results with screenshots, forcing several redesigns to balance usability, space, and discoverability.

After iterative tests—vertical facets, modals, floating controls—the team settled on a labeled “Filters” tab under the search that opens a drawer-like facet panel, is bright and obvious, and automatically closes on scroll to reveal full-width results. Since launch, 61% of mobile users interact with the facet controls and those users experiment with many facet combinations, indicating the design successfully restored instant, usable faceting on mobile.

AppApp