Knowing Your Audience
What do users want from apps?
When you think about creating an app, it’s not uncommon for a discouraging voice to try and prevent you from achieving success. Ultimately, you’re going to need to conquer that voice or ignore it and move swiftly on. Making a successful app is a very subjective area; there are three key questions to ask yourself.
Have you achieved what you set out to do?
Has the app reached it’s intended audience?
Will the app have longevity or is it a fad?
If what you’re setting out to do is make a lot of money you’ll need to work hard. Achievements are much better when done as quantifiable milestones.
“After 10,000 downloads, I will add additional languages.”
In general, the more niche your app the less of an audience you will have. However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as creating an innovative new concept; having a smaller audience does not necessarily mean a smaller income. If your app fills a genuine need and gains momentum, it will generate revenue.
It’s easy to get stressed about how Angry Birds stayed at number one across multiple platforms for so long, or how the Twitter app is frequently in the top ten, but top charts do not necessarily reflect apps that fill a specific need or niche.
Also, some apps are intentionally seasonal (Christmas themed games for example), and are not likely to be in the top ten during June.
The Race to the Bottom? Not likely.
Many popular blog/news outlets have previously claimed that the mobile software industry is a “race to the bottom”, whether on Android or iOS. I strongly disagree; ultimately, everyone needs to eat and everyone should be rewarded for working hard.
If an app takes 200 hours to develop, why should it be given away for free with no compensation for the developer? That’s madness.
I recently conducted a survey; I asked: “When it comes to paid apps, which do you prefer…”
66% surveyed preferred to buy an app up-front, with no additional in-app purchases. Interestingly, this left 19% that would prefer free apps with in-app purchases for additional content. 15% indicated that they would be happy with a paid up-front app that had in-app additional purchases.
In-app advertising as a method for paying was not an option, because it is not relevant to the genre of the app that I am building. If I was to run the poll again, I would ask the 66% if additional in-app purchases put them off buying an app.
The race to the bottom is a fallacy. Of course people do not want to pay for apps that are poor quality, of course they do not want to pay for an app that is a collection of WebViews, or poor implementation of the 500th version of the same idea.
If you’re building quality apps, producing innovating ideas, or solving genuine problems, there’s a good chance people will buy what you have produced.
The question then is not “will I make money from my app,” rather “is my app worth buying?”
Have you heard the Word?
Another question I asked was, “Which three key features are most important to you?” There was a list of ten options, all genuinely valid desires.
- Reliable — I dislike crashes.
- Beautiful — Looks great on my device.
- Migratable — I like to change platforms.
- Cheap — I don’t want to spend more than £3.
- Linguistic — I like other languages.
- Funny — I prefer apps with personality.
- Integrated — I like apps that work together.
- Accessible — I champion disabilities.
- Guiding — I like a helping hand.
- Unobtrusive — I like to get on with things.
Consistently, both Reliable and Integrated ranked as the highest desires. Linguistic, Accessible, and Guiding consistently ranked lowest.
That does not mean you should neglect translating your app into other languages, instead, I evaluate this to mean that people are unlikely to want to use an app if it is not in their own language.
Accessibility is highly important to consider if you are developing for education.
By excluding learners with eyesight problems or colour blindness, you are seriously missing out on a frequently neglected market, i.e. niche. Also, why should not everyone benefit from modern learning software? The developer will benefit in terms of revenue, and the learners will benefit with more access to quality learning.
Reliable needs no explanation; who wants to use a finance app that frequently loses data? How long before you un-install a game if it crashes every time you reach the first level boss?
Reliability is paramount and trumps all other desirable features.
Finally, the third highest ranking feature is Beautiful. This is an area where Android apps have suffered in the past. With Android 4.0 and above being the mainstay, there is no longer an excuse to neglect design. Android has come of age and offers so much in terms of ability to create a beautiful and flowing user experience.
Apps that are integrated are also favoured by users. This is because unlike iOS, Android makes integration between apps seamless, even apps by different developers. People have become accustomed to being able to share data between apps. Some apps take it to an extreme whilst others offer subtle integration.
This is Android, not iOS
The biggest mistake you can make is to simply migrate your iOS app to Android, or vice versa; which goes hand-in-hand with expecting one developer to create compelling user experiences on two competing and distinctly different user interface platforms.
Yes, most developers are talented enough to be able to create for both platforms, but no, that does not make it the best practice.
Platform specific developers know and understand how the operating system works much better than a generalist could. Yes, there are risks with being platform specific — for example, if demand for the platform declines; however this is not a problem for those wanting apps, rather it is a need for developers to see the next trend before it happens and keep their skills up to date.
None of this is new to the industry; good developers have been migrating between platforms since the computing era started, we should be used to it. How many Blackberry server administrators have or will switch?
When you try to clone your iOS app onto Android, the end result is a bad user experience and therefore negative views of your product or company.
Both platforms have distinctly different user interface designs and idioms, both have different ways of displaying the same data.
Now that Android is mature, people expect Android-style apps. If your app looks and feels like it was made for iOS, it will not mesh well, and odds are it will not integrate well either.
Remember, integration with other apps on Android is far more desirable than an app that thinks it can do everything.
Knowing what your audience want is far more important than telling your audience what they are going to get.
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