Celebrate women in app development
March 8, 2023
This International Women's Month, we’re celebrating women founders, creators, developers, and designers. Read on to learn more about their journeys and the stories behind their apps and games.
Behind the Design: Rebel Girls
The Rebel Girls app uses immersive audio experiences, gorgeous art, and clever interactive elements to spotlight its historic heroines. “We’re creating an omnichannel for girls,” says Jes Wolfe, CEO of Rebel Girls. “The app takes the best of our books, podcasts, and audio stories and puts them into a flagship destination.”
Behind the Design: Rebel Girls
Find out how the groundbreaking book became an ADA-winning app.
View nowDownload Rebel Girls from the App Store
Behind the Design: Wylde Flowers
This charming Apple Design Award-winning game is a cross-pollination of farming simulation, eerie mystery, optional love story, and exploration of tolerance and understanding. Also, you’re a witch who sometimes turns into a cat. “The Wylde Flowers experience is a bit different for everybody,” says Amanda Schofield, cofounder, creative director, and managing director of indie developer Studio Drydock. “It’s all about self-expression and self-exploration.”
Behind the Design: Wylde Flowers
Discover how Studio Drydock created this charming Apple Design Award-winning game.
View nowDownload Wylde Flowers from Apple Arcade
Developer Spotlight: Rootd
When she started having panic attacks as a university student, Ania Wysocka (pictured above) wanted "to look for an app that could explain what was happening to me,” she says. But when the hypnosis and therapy apps she downloaded didn’t have what she was seeking, she decided to create Rootd to demystify panic attacks and bring on-the-spot relief.
Developer Spotlight: Rootd
Talk about an impressive résumé.
View nowDownload Rootd from the App Store
Behind the Design: Overboard!
In the evocative murder mystery game Overboard!, you play not as the detective but the murderer most foul — Veronica Villensey, a fading 1930s starlet who’s tossed her husband off a cruise ship. To bring the story to life, artist and designer Anastasia Wyatt trawled into the rich potential of the game’s vintage setting, pulling designs from 1930s fashion, magazines, and even sewing pattern books.
Behind the Design: Overboard!
How Inkle built an upside-down whodunit in just 100 days.
View nowDownload Overboard! from the App Store
Behind the Design: Pok Pok Playroom
When the husband-and-wife team of Esther Huybreghts and Mathijs Demaeght first began dreaming up Pok Pok Playroom, they made a solemn vow: parents shouldn't need to mute the app in a restaurant. “We didn’t want media and jingles and jangles that get stuck in your head,” Huybreghts laughs. “We wanted a quieter experience.”
Behind the Design: Pok Pok Playroom
Pok Pok Playroom is a quiet feast for little senses. There are switches to flip, gears to grind, blobs to plop together, and bells to ring — and those are just a handful of the animations designed to make the app feel like a tactile, handmade toy.
View nowDownload Pok Pok Playroom from the App Store
Developer Spotlight: Ground News
In 2017, Harleen Kaur launched Ground News, a news aggregator that helps you see how media outlets across the political spectrum are covering—or ignoring—a topic. Not only does it let you read coverage from thousands of publications worldwide, it also shows the political bent of an article or outlet (which is ranked by a third-party service and Ground News users themselves).
Developer Spotlight: Ground News
Talk about an impressive résumé.
View nowDownload Ground News from the App Store
Developer Spotlight: Prêt-à-Template
When Prêt-à-Template founder and CEO Roberta Weiand launched her app in 2014, it quickly became a darling among fashion designers around the world. With its library of templates, textures, and patterns, the app lets anyone sketch their dream outfit.
Developer Spotlight: Prêt-à-Template
View nowDownload Prêt-à-Template from the App Store
Developer Spotlight: The Dyrt
Sarah Smith, an avid camper and cofounder of The Dyrt, was frustrated by how hard it was to find details on a campsite before you booked. She wanted to know that, say, site 2 was next to a busy road, while site 7 was along a river. She wondered why nobody seemed to be solving the problem. Then she had a thought that changed everything: “Why can’t I do it?”
Developer Spotlight: The Dyrt
View nowDownload The Dyrt from the App Store