Customizable App Tone & Language Settings
I believe a highly impactful yet simple feature to implement would be customizing how the app communicates with users - specifically, letting users choose between different tone styles (e.g., playful vs. professional).
This request has been raised multiple times over the years (e.g., Emma Community Post), and it remains unresolved despite being relatively trivial to implement from an engineering standpoint. As an engineer myself, I can confidently say this could be shipped within a day(or hours - as long as you got a proper code foundation) by an experienced dev, even if they are not they should figure it out quickly.
(there are a ton more of these comments on reddit, and its costing you money, its costing you user base, something you could easily implement, imagine you hire a dev for £300 a day contract, would that be worth implementing if you can retain 100 customers? 5 * 300 = 1500£ so you make a profit + have a long term ROI.
Here’s another one with like 11upvotes (again, takes a few hours to implement a “tone” functionality like theming, so no reason not to have it)
Why This Matters:
- User Retention: Some users find the current tone (e.g., emojis, casual phrasing) off-putting. This can directly lead to churn.
- Personalization: Allowing users to choose how they’re spoken to makes the app feel more respectful and adaptable.
- Accessibility: Not everyone resonates with a playful, emoji-heavy tone - especially users who want a more mature financial tool.
The color isn’t that big of an issue because purple can be royal, and the gummy bear isn’t an issue either, its the way its associated - so the brand tone feels off. Something I mentioned in my marketing post.
Suggested Implementation
The system could use simple token-based language files. Based on a user’s tone preference ("default", "professional", "playful"), you dynamically pull copy from the appropriate file.
Example en-default.json
{
"OVERSPENDING": "Whoa! You’re overspending 🤑💸",
"WELCOME": "Hey there! Ready to crush your finances today?"
}
Example en-professional.json
{
"OVERSPENDING": "You’ve exceeded your typical spending limits.",
"WELCOME": "Welcome back. Let’s review your financial activity."
}
Example en-playful.json
{
"OVERSPENDING": "Oopsies! Someone's splurging again 😅💰",
"WELCOME": "Yo, money master! Let’s slay some budgets 🔥"
}
Example User Setting
{
"userId": "abc123",
"language": "en",
"tone": "professional"
}
In Code (Simplified)
const messages = loadMessages(user.language, user.tone)
const text = messages["OVERSPENDING"]
And if you’re using Monorepos even easier, if not still no big deal create a package and just update that. You already got some free code.
Conclusion
Adding tone customization is a low-effort, high-reward feature. It respects user preferences, improves retention, and reflects a mature, adaptable product. Given how easy this is to build - just a few structured JSON files and a tone selector in user settings - there’s little reason not to prioritize it.
Easy feature to add, and given the frustration and bad advertisment it gives, its worth fixing and adding customisation.
Customisation is a big thing in apps. Dark mode, settings like these - all easy stuff, if you know how.
Just to expand further… because I saw some post from ex-staff of Emma App mentioning how the Bear is the style they want.. I think you need to zoom out a bit.
There’s not reason to slash your customers when you can create a neutral UI platform, and enhance it with things like customisation - customise the tone.
This is actually psychology, while the gummy bear can ecoke association from childhood… what psychologist call this is “cultural semiotic connotation” - its percieved meaning, so you can literally shape on how people feel about Emma App.
You already had professional serious people using this app and complain, no point losing them - you could have implemented the feature in a few hours (if you said this is a strain reconsider engineers you hired ironically speaking).
According to contextual framing theory and symbolic interactionism, the emotional and cognitive response to the gummy bear depends heavily on the narrative, tone, and design context surrounding it.
When embedded within a more professional, refined UI and paired with a tone aligned to user expectations, even a symbol traditionally linked to whimsy can be reinterpreted as a friendly, approachable mascot rather than a childish gimmick. This malleability of meaning underscores the importance of user-customizable experiences, which allow individual users to co-construct the symbol’s significance in a way that resonates with their personal and cultural framework, ultimately improving engagement and brand perception.
Right now you’re losing the battle on reddit and other forums with negative advertisement on a feature you can instantly implement. Thus shaping the brand from a social point of view in a negative way for certain professionals, when this could have been easily avoided.
There is a difference in us fooling around in a forum using emojs and typos… compared to when you interact with customers.
You can have a clean interface, neutral, and let them set the tone on an ONBOARDING phase in the app right away - easy fix. Everyone is happy.
I would go back to the board and re-think the UI/UX, and estimate engeenering cost, becuse I don’t understand why this feature hasn’t been implemented after all of these years and lost customers because of it - when its cheaper to just implement this idea and keep everyone happy and make more money.
Either no one came up with the idea, or no one pushed back, or engeeners are weak.
I don’t know - but that’s one of many ideas I have for Emma.
You really need someone to take ownership of the product understanding the customer base and see how you can serve them the best - no reason to make a hard stance of keeping emojs when a lot of people dislike them, and the solution is simple to implement.
I hope what I wrote is usefull - if you do implement these things, please do let me know as Id like to create a blog post from this idealy, make it a win win for yourself and myself, so we get something out of it at least.
Edit: You can also have a different theme mode as well, a more professional, slimmed down and a one that’s more playful.
Customisation is super important, especially when it doesn’t cost you a lot to do this and you retain a ton of people long term. This could actually be your edge - playful or professional, they can use Emma, no need to find another app, just let them customise. This is a missed opportunity with almost no engeenering cost to implement, while making everyone happy.
I know I’m beating a dead horse here but if you run the numbers you’re basically losing thousands of pounds by not having this very easy and quick feature to implement.
This is a small feature with disproportionate upside. A product-led company llike yourself should treat that as a signal. Users are asking. Let them customize how they’re spoken to (and perhaps the theme they want, and I’m not talking about light/dark mode, but how many gummy bears they want for example - and you’ll keep them around a lot longer.
The solution is there.