How to Avoid the Graveyard of Forgotten Apps
By Alex Hertel, CEO and cofounder, Xperiel
Earlier this month, Niantic Labs, developer of the immensely popular Pokémon Go game, announced plans to unleash a Harry Potter AR game in 2018. Niantic had overwhelming success with Pokémon Go — with a record-breaking 28.5 million unique daily users in the U.S. in July 2016 — so it makes sense that we expect to see a similar fan response to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
When Pokémon Go first came out, mobs armed with mobile phones scoured cities, boardwalks, hiking trails and other points of interest in search of elusive, animated creatures. The excitement of using your mobile device in a seemingly new way, mixed with the nostalgia of a beloved cartoon, had people hooked.
The game’s success made me think: what separates Pokémon Go and longstanding mobile gaming juggernauts like Candy Crush from other applications such as FourSquare, Draw Something, and Angry Birds that were once immensely popular but eventually lost all their appeal? What keeps Pokémon Go and Candy Crush from falling into what I like to call “The Graveyard of Forgotten Apps”? Is there a recipe for succeeding in the mobile market that trips up other players?
I started to take a closer look at where these forgotten applications went wrong and why they failed to engage users. Here are my findings:
Popular apps unleash all the capabilities mobile has to offer
Pokémon Go excelled in using not one, but several mobile sensors to impress users. The phone’s GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, and camera work in harmony to create arguably the most immersive mobile gaming experience in history. It went where no typical point-and-tap game has gone before, and was so compelling that it moved people to get out of their seats and explore their world.
Most applications fail to do this because they don’t use the full range of capabilities in a mobile device, creating many missed opportunities to keep users engaged. This is a common thread among all applications in The Graveyard. The FourSquare application relied solely on the GPS to deem people “Mayor” of frequently visited locations; Draw Something and Angry Birds relied only on swiping and tapping on a phone’s touchscreen. The key to creating truly immersive experiences on mobile devices seems to require developers to take advantage of the full power of mobile sensors — many of which exist inside every smart phone. Once this is achieved, endless possibilities for fresh user experiences are unlocked.
The best apps listen to their users and respond by frequently refreshing their content
The key to any strong, lasting relationship is being a good listener. In the app world, your audiences “talk” to you through their data usage and feedback on message boards like Reddit and GameFAQs. Once you start to see the number of daily users drop or length of average gameplay decrease, it’s time to investigate the root of these trends and see what changes are in high demand. Most likely, users are begging for new experiences or patches, and they have very little loyalty or patience in this fast-paced world, so updates need to happen quickly!
Candy Crush is a great example of rapid response based on user stats and demands. It has mastered the craft of creating game boards that speak to its users’ varying interests in game mechanics and playing styles. On one level you can be tasked to quickly clear all the candies under tight time constraints and the next can be a mind-boggling puzzle of how to release candies from their cages. From an outsider’s perspective, these levels may seem randomly strung together, however, there are deep game analytics at play that track what types of game boards perform best and which levels need to be tweaked or removed to keep users coming back for more. Candy Crush has leveraged customer data to sustain strong user engagement for over five years, and goes to show that listening closely and acting quickly are key.
Your app will live or die based on its UX, so make it good
The quality of a user experience separates good apps from great ones. As people download apps at a record rate, their expectations for UX excellence is at an all time high for the apps they choose to keep on their devices. Lag is unacceptable, crashes can mean significant dips in active users, input gestures must be optimized, and on top of all this, applications must look good. Our mobile devices are graphical supercomputers capable of displaying stunning, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics rich with lighting and shading effects, so whenever appropriate, use those powers! Bottom line: great UX is table stakes for a successful application.
Final thoughts
Some of the coolest apps (past and present) both have awesome graphics and capabilities, plus new games, modifications, etc. as a result of what the user data tells them. Pokémon Go did a commendable job of updating characters from the late 90’s to fit a sleek, modern application design, and it was also able to merge the familiar look of the original Gameboy version of the game with Google-like maps to fulfill feelings of nostalgia. Candy Crush is also known for its fun, creative and delicious-looking designs, which are so recognizable that a high-end fashion brand has created an entire line of Candy Crush apparel. And, this is not all just for looks. A recent Forrester study showed that quality UX design can raise conversion rates by 400 percent, which could mean huge gains for a business’ bottom line.
Developers only have one real shot at impressing audiences with your application, and after the initial success in downloads, you’ll have to work even harder to keep users engaged. If you exploit the potential of devices — and keep an open ear to what users love and hate, moving quickly to meet new demands — you can probably avoid The Graveyard of Forgotten Apps.
