QuitGuide App, a free smoking cessation app

Statistics show that smoking rates have declined significantly over recent years. But, despite the encouraging numbers, there are still far too many people smoking. Truth is that many of those who smoke are trying to quit, but it's often easier to tell than to accomplish.
The decision to quit smoking is great, but it requires a lot of good will and motivation. Quitting is a hard road full of obstacles and sidetracks that may lead you back where you started.

Luckily, there's a plenty of tools that could help smokers succeed and leave cigarettes once for good. QuitGuide by ICF International is one of them. It is a free smoking cessation app built to help smokers successfully become and stay smokefree, by tracking their cravings and moods, monitoring progress toward achieving smokefree milestones, identifying reasons for quitting and smoking triggers and develop strategies to deal with them, providing guidance on quitting smoking, and a variety of other strategies.
What impresses us the most is the number of those strategies and techniques and the way they're presented to the app users. But, let's start from beginning.

Upon opening the QuitGuide app, you are prompted to enter some basic information about your quitting plan, i.e. the date you've planned to become smokefree. There is an option below to share your plan with your friends on Facebook, but it's optional. The app doesn’t ask for your personal information which is good, because most of people prefer anonymity. However, friend support could be crucial to some people, so option to share your success (and slips as well) is a good addition.

Another neat feature is the personal message on why you want to quit smoking you may add once you decide your smokefree date. That message could be anything, from strong motivational manifesto to simple reminder that you can't stand your yellow fingers and smelly breath. Whatever message you choose, it will welcome you each time you open the app. Of course, if you don't like it, you can change it to something else anytime you want. Beside the motivational message, you can load the picture as a visual reminder of why you want to quit smoking. It could be picture of your family, pet, serene landscape or a motivational poster. Just like the message, it's completely personal and optional choice.

Beside this neat reminder, the main screen of the QuitGuide app offers several trackers to help users monitor their progress, i.e. whether they were smokefree or they slipped, or to track their cravings and particular moods that may drive them to smoke. This option is actually really good, because the information you get from the trackers may help refining your quitting plan and make it successful.
Another thing we liked is Quitism, a set of motivational quotes that greet you on a home screen. Each time you start the app, a different quote welcomes you. Positive thoughts and attitude are among the drive forces of smoke cessation process, so Quitism is a nice touch. This feature is particularly useful if you're not good at motivating yourself (and have trouble choosing your own motivational message and picture).

From a home screen, you're also able to see and share your statistics by taping the graph icon on the upper right or open the menu on the upper left, and access several additional useful features, including time and location based motivational messages that may help with quitting process.

QuitGuide app also offers some useful reference information on how to quit smoking, from preparation steps, dealing with cravings and withdrawal, avoiding slips, and finally, staying on course and remaining smokefree. Here goes the first objection we have about QuirGuide app. While the rest of this app is well designed and presented, How to Quit section is quite simple, looking somewhat unfinished. The valuable information is presented in plain textual format that could definitely be improved to be more engaging.
We also found that some options such as hours and money saved don't work all the time, which hopefully will be fixed in future update.
Our impression of the nice design was spoiled by awkward UI slider that simply couldn't support accurate inputs (entering the price was frustrating). Text input would be much better solution than a slider.

Besides small irks with design and lack of interactive and more engaging reference information, the QuitGuide is valuable app that employs many different strategies and techniques to help people who are trying to quit smoking. 

Benefit: The app is useful for everyone who is trying to quit smoking.