Simple Tips on How to Improve User Retention

Feyza Ürkut
Huawei Developers
Published in
5 min readDec 1, 2023
Photo by Andrew Ridley on Unsplash

Introduction

In today’s world, competition in the field of mobile app development is more intense than ever. Retaining users and increasing engagement are critical factors for a successful app.

In this article, we aim to provide developers with inspiring ways to enhance user interaction by examining a range of innovative technologies, libraries, and services.

For example, applications leveraging data such as Bluetooth connection status, location information, and environmental factors, as demonstrated by the Huawei Awareness Kit, offer a powerful tool to customize and personalize the user experience. Similarly, voice command technologies (e.g., Amazon Alexa) can provide a user-friendly experience by enabling users to interact with applications through voice commands. Additionally, artificial intelligence-based recommendation systems can analyze user behaviors to customize content, allowing users to spend more time within the application. By utilizing these technologies, developers can establish stronger connections with users, starting from notifications and extending to interactive content, special offers, and personalized recommendations. Let’s start! 🙌

User Satisfaction is Crucial

  • To retain users, the application must satisfy them. Data analysis and continuous updates are important to ensure this satisfaction.

Interaction and Communication

  • Sufficiently interactive applications can increase user retention rates. Mechanisms like instant notifications can enhance interaction with users.

Onboarding, Communication, and Retargeting

  • Onboarding processes, in-app messaging, and retargeting strategies are effective ways to retain users.

Providing Value

  • Providing real value to users is crucial. Failing to deliver value can lead to disappointment.

Team Collaboration

  • Creating a successful application now requires collaboration not only among engineers but also involves designers, business professionals, and marketers working together as a team.

Technology-Focused Planning

  • You don’t have to focus on technology when planning your app. Concentrate on your expertise, and technical details can be addressed by an experienced project manager or developer.

Implementation

  • Even the brightest ideas are not valuable if not implemented. If technology is not your expertise, focus on more important matters. Make a plan and execute it seamlessly.

Enhancing User Experience with Informed Steps

Discovering that conscious applications not only improve user experience but also increase user loyalty can open new horizons for developers.

💙 Music Recommendations

  • Understanding the user’s music preferences based on the time of day and providing recommendations accordingly is possible. For example, energetic music suggestions in the mornings and calmer tracks in the evenings.

💙 Weather-Themed Content

  • Utilizing location and weather data obtained with the Awareness Kit to suggest content suitable for the user’s region’s weather or creating thematic playlists.

💙 Content Filtration Based on User Preferences

  • Analyzing the user’s past preferences and behaviors to offer more suitable content. This can be used to personalize recommended articles, products, or events.

💙 Personalized Notifications

  • Personalizing notifications based on the user’s daily routine and habits to grab their attention and increase interactions with your app.

💙 Social Interactions

  • Using Awareness Kit data to facilitate interactions among users based on their locations or bringing together users with common interests.

Sure, let’s take a closer look at how we can effectively use the Awareness Kit with a beautiful use case 🌸.

Awareness Kit

Awareness Kit is a library that enables applications to enhance user experience by efficiently obtaining valuable information about users’ real-time situations. This library allows gathering a variety of crucial information, from users’ locations and behaviors to environmental conditions, through a set of concise code snippets.

💥 In our article, by utilizing the features provided by the Awareness Kit, we will explore how to increase user loyalty through conscious steps with an example use case based on Bluetooth headphone status.

How to integrate HMS Dependencies

  1. Register as Huawei developer and complete identity verification in Huawei developers website, refer to register a Huawei ID.
  2. Create a project in Android Studio.

3. Generate a SHA-256 certificate fingerprint.

4. To generate SHA-256 certificate fingerprint. On right-upper corner of android project click Gradle, search gradle signingReport.

5. Create an App in AppGallery Connect.

6. Download the agconnect-services.json file from App information, copy and paste in android Project under app directory.

7. Enter SHA-256 certificate fingerprint and click tick icon.

8. Click Manage APIs tab and enable Awareness Kit.

9. Add the below maven URL in build.gradle(Project) file under the repositories of buildscript, dependencies and allprojects, refer Add Configuration.

10. Add the below dependencies in build.gradle(Module) file.

11. Now Sync the gradle.

12. Add the required permissions to the AndroidManifest.xml file.

13. Retrieve the Capture Client object from the Awareness Kit, utilize the API feature to inquire about the headset status to access the user’s context. Subsequently, make your application ready to process services based on the outputs of the Awareness Kit.

14. Certainly, you can find the final version of the service class we wrote below. In this use case, we are sending a notification to encourage the user to use the application based on whether the headphones are connected or not. In this way, the application aims to improve the user experience by increasing usage.

15. Let’s not forget to add the service class we created to the AndroidManifest.xml file :)

16. Finally, you can use the following code to start our service class 🎈.

Outputs

Result

Conscious steps empower app developers to establish a deeper connection with users and respond more effectively to their needs. This enables developers to stand out in a competitive market and solidify user loyalty.

The Huawei Awareness Kit used in the example in the article provides developers with a powerful toolkit to serve their customers in a context-sensitive manner. By using the Awareness Kit, you can create different use case scenarios to retain users.

See you in the next article 👋

References

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