Why Startups Fail
Every day I have a couple of ideas of mobile or web apps that surely will be “world changing”.
Silicon Valley is full of founders who talk about changing the world and then fail miserably. Everybody hears about “that guy’s” success and it seems so easy no?
Well.. You have an idea.. then you build your web or mobile app … and then… you make profit!
But…
Most startups fail. However, many entrepreneurs still overestimate the chances of success — and the cost of failure.
Failure is difficult to quantify as the product may still exist in a bad form but limp on for years.
And what makes the difference between success and failure? I would say that a poor user experience plays it’s part…
You build your app.. and then you realize the experience isn’t the one you hoped for… It doesn’t resonate with your users..
And where did you go wrong? As the overall idea is brilliant and you put in a lot of time, money and effort to create this wonderful, world changing app.
When you have an idea about how something should be, it’s hard to get the idea out of your mind and explore alternatives — it’s just brilliant to you. But you are only one.
When it comes to UX Design, it’s important not to get drawn into your current design.
Even if it’s good, you might find that it is not good enough for your users and their needs.
Adjusting, or even changing the design might solve these needs.. but that involves letting go of your current approach for a while.
This is the process of prototyping. You widen the set of potential ideas in order to make the interface better.
And then you refine them and adjust, or even create a brand new design.
So instead of going from idea directly to building our app … we’re going to go from idea to a prototype, and then to a review, and then to an enhanced prototype again.
And this cycle will repeat itself until you reach the result and experience you are looking for.
This is actually the outline of the software prototyping process itself:
- Determine requirements
Determine basic requirements including the input and output information desired.
2. Develop Initial Prototype
The initial prototype is developed that includes only user interfaces.
3. Review
The customers, including end-users, examine the prototype and provide feedback on additions or changes.
4. Revise and Enhance the Prototype
Using the feedback both the specifications and the prototype can be improved. Negotiation about what is within the scope of the contract/product may be necessary.
If changes are introduced then a repeat of steps #3 and #4 may be needed.
The way we do this is by beginning with something fake and then gradually adding elements that are more real along the way and sprinkle it with interactivity. This is basically a type of the prototyping process called evolutionary prototyping.
The main goal when prototyping is to build a very robust prototype in a structured manner and constantly refine it.
We need to test ideas, it saves time and money and it’s quite fun as it puts you in direct contact with your clients. You need them to test your idea and they need you to create the right app for them.
Also, by testing the ideas that we have, we can get new ideas and make the experience of our products even better.
How can we do that?
By prototyping apps and testing them in the real world, with our clients. Request feedback and then reiterate. Reiterate until the experience is great.
The above is an excerpt from my course Mobile UX Design Process: Create a Successful App, a crash course that helps you understand and correctly apply the software prototyping methodology when creating a mobile app. The course is available on Udemy.
If you like what you just read, please hit the ‘Recommend’ heart below so that others might stumble upon this piece. You can also follow me on Twitter for UX Design articles and discounts on my courses.
