This is surely the most obvious, the most basic, and yet most utterly ignored issue in current UX.

Why. Download. The. App?

If you are an e-commerce operation, the answer is of course “to avoid the Google tax”, or (for the optimistic) “to get Apple/Google to feature us on the app store home page”. Sure, SEM kills you. But not your customers! And sure, if you look snazzy (which is BTW everything in apps. Usability, or even basic fitness for purpose, is quite irrelevant), you get teh downloadz — but maybe not the repeat usage. Just ask Path, the boo.com of the mobile age.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many so-called “product managers” are willing to ignore all this and encourage their execs to piss so muchup the wall in the name of such facile faddist drek. I can only hope those who continue to do so will be flipping burgers in a few years time. Because the idiocy I see is inexcusable.

Jonathan Baker-Bates

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User experience - for better or worse.

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