As apps interact with users they create data. Apps frequently require access or save this data to function properly, and to provide the best user experience. This data includes personal settings and media as well as other documents. The data can be used to track clicks and product purchases made within the application. There are several ways to gather this information that include asking the user for it, or inferring it based on their behavior on the web or purchasing it from a third party. Ideal customer data should be centrally stored and in a standardised format that allows for easy integration and exchange between different applications. There are new standards for customer data profiles according to industry sectors that can aid in defining the data models to be used.
There are many ways to store data and the system used in an app will affect how the user interface looks. The most common is file storage, in which the data is kept in folders and files, arranged in a hierarchy. This is the way used by hard disk drives as well as cloud-based storage, such as Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Another method is block storage, which is where the data is split into blocks user data storage that can be stored anywhere on the storage infrastructure with identifiers to allow them be quickly identified and taken action.
The early systems came with built-in tools that gave specific information about the properties of the storage medium in textual format. Modern systems, such as Android provide visualisations of these functions, such as capacity/usage and life span. The visualizations of capacity/usage are typically displayed in horizontal bar charts, whereas lifespan is presented as a circular pie chart, or variations of it such as doughnut charts.
