Thoughts on Delightful Apps
When writing Cassandra's Deal I had in the plan a "settings" page and a little gear icon to get to it, as one does. In the end I ended up not having any settings. Sure, there were a lot of visual representation decisions which could have had settings. And there are levels of trivial move automation that could have a setting.
But I realized that an app without settings is liberating for a user. There is no implied obligation to go to the settings, understand which ones are applicable to you and how they work. Freedom!
There are still visual customizations, but I let them be driven by the system preferences the user has already made. Dark mode and light mode is automatic. It's not in the current release, but the drawing of the card face to make the rank and suit more visible will be driven by the "text size" preference of the user.
Many apps will require settings or some data input from the user to make sense, but for simple apps, its worth asking yourself if the user discomfort of having settings is worth the gain.