Successfully engaging and retaining users is a core challenge for many developers. We commissioned a consumer research with Sparkler, a digital insight and strategy consultancy, to understand why some apps become favorites while others are quickly forgotten, deleted, or replaced.

What we’ve learned is that just as in nature, apps exist in a ruthless and unforgiving environment. They have to struggle to endure in a crowded, constantly changing world where only the fittest survive and thrive. …

Samuel Hulick is the author of The Elements of User Onboarding and the UX designer behind the website User Onboard, where he publishes “teardowns” analysis of the onboarding processes of some of the most popular apps.

He defines user onboarding as any time there’s an opportunity to increase the likelihood that users are successful when trying to adopt your product and his motto is start your designing where your users start their using. Sounds simple enough right?

We spoke to Samuel to understand how he thinks user onboarding can be done to retain more signups, reduce churn, and engage people…

Early on in my role as an Apps partner manager at Google Play, I was drawn towards the Self-Improvement apps space because their persuasive influence transcends screen-level interactions. Their mission is to persuade people to take real-life actions that lead to long-term behavior change and ultimately shape how they live their lives. Read on to discover how these companies are harnessing behavioral insights to bridge people’s intention-action gap and work towards the ‘future self’ they seek to be.

1. Make the first session a success

For self-improvement apps, the first step to addressing people’s gap between intentions and actions is…

One key challenge subscription businesses face is that many users don’t perceive the value of paying. Google Play teamed up with The Behavioural Architects to explore how behavioural economics (BE) can be used to better communicate to free users the value of upgrading to paid app subscriptions.

The team collaborated with two app developers — popular brain-training app, Peak, and high intensity training fitness app, Freeletics Bodyweight — looking at alternative variations of their current in-app upsell strategies. …

“[Smartphones] have vast potential to influence consumer welfare — both for better and for worse.” — Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity

The proliferation of smartphones in our lives presents untapped opportunities for consumers and developers alike. In the first two blog posts of this series, I explored techniques app developers can use to drive user behavior that aligns with key business objectives. In this last post of the series, I discuss the design pitfalls that undermine our actions and how persuasive app techniques can impact our lives for the better.

Most developers…

In the previous blog post, I introduced a three-step process to optimize for a specific desired behavior (focusing on the first two steps):

• Step 1: Simplify the desired behavior. Encourage action from engaged, motivated users by reducing (and ideally removing) barriers that prevent it from happening.
• Step 2: Trigger behavior from motivated users. The presence of triggers (prompts, cues, and CTAs) can drive action even when motivation levels might be low.
• Step 3: Boost user motivation. Motivation is hard to influence but developers can inspire users to act with persuasive messaging or engaging game elements.

In this post, I’m going…

If you work on mobile apps, you have the potential to influence the actions of millions of people every single day. Whether it’s to engage with a new feature, visit your app daily, or subscribe to your premium product, you likely have in mind a key behavior you wish more users would do, more often. But how can you increase the chances of your users taking action?

Whatever the desired behavior, this blog post (the first in a three-part series drawing on insights rooted in behavioral economics, psychology, and gamification) will introduce you to a three-step approach to optimizing for…

Ten years ago I was a Cardiff university undergraduate student, loving (most) of the experiences that era afforded me. Like other young adults, I was keen to get out of academia and start living life! At the time I didn’t fully grasp the important role that education continues to play in your life after university (even if it comes in non-structured forms), or that the ‘self’ I viewed as concretely me constantly changes and evolves. What would I tell my younger self, if I could? …