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Every app on your phone is competing with Facebook

Every app on your phone is competing with Facebook

Very few app producers or start–ups may recognise the fact, but far from offering a unique experience to users, their apps are vying for attention with the biggest names in digital: Facebook, Instagram, Candy Crush, you name it.

Any app that manages to make its way on to a user’s device is automatically a direct competitor to dozens of other apps, all within a thumb’s reach and all with the potential to use up those few minutes that the user has to spare at that point in time.

Combined with research that tell us apps feature an abandonment rate of around 95% overall, and that 1 in 5 apps are used only once, this is chilling stuff for any app producer. So while the user’s decision to download an app is still a major landmark moment, the battle for engagement has only just begun.

Some months ago Vibhu Norby, founder of start–up EveryMe, wore his heart on his sleeve in a blog post, letting the world in on adoption rates for the app that had to date secured $3.6m in funding. Those of a nervous disposition may want to sit down for the next part:

• From over 300,000 downloads of the EveryMe app, 200,000 people signed up to use the service.

• A requirement for a phone number or email address saw 25% abandon the app.

• A further (optional) step to sign in via a social network saw a further 25% leave the process.

• Just less than 25% didn’t create a social group within the app.

• Finally, another 25% failed to add anyone to the group they created.

The net result was that EveryMe retained around 5% of users through the entire on–boarding process, by all accounts a common story even with apps that have firmly established themselves over time.

The challenge for EveryMe, indeed for every other app on the market, is simply to build something that people want to use. Before app producers get close to design of any sort answers to the following questions should be clear: firstly, “What problem are we solving?”, and subsequently, “Are we building the right thing?”.

Solid research and user experience strategy goes a long way to providing answers to those questions, which should include getting a firm grasp on user motivation and intent. A lot has been made in the past of the idea of gamification and making apps and services more pleasurable to use. These principles tap directly into motivation theory, where ‘rewards’ (badges and user levels for example) are offered as extrinsic motivation for user interaction.

Stronger than this again is intrinsic motivation, where the drive to act (and interact) comes from within the individual. Take as an example the popularity of the ‘Couch to 5K’ system. The method of incrementally lengthening periods of running until a non–runner can comfortably cover a 5 kilometre distance has spawned dozens if not hundreds of apps, which consistently top the app download charts. Leveraging intrinsic motivation is one of the most effective ways to encourage engagement over the long term.

The secret to establishing motivation – extrinsic or intrinsic – and knowing which one to use, is to know your audience well enough to answer the fundamental questions: what are users trying to achieve and how are you facilitating those goals? A user’s time spent interacting with an app or a website is an investment on their part; they expect a return on that investment, whether that is in the form of a tangible return – say an item bought online – or through realised ambitions and goals achieved.

What motivations are you able to tap into for your app, website or application? What are users really trying to achieve, and how are you making it easier for them? If these questions are not credibly answered, those thumbs will almost certainly drift towards the Facebook icon once again.

By Rick Monro

Rick was UX Director at Fathom from 2014 to 2017, when he left to take up a role as Principal UX Architect at Puppet.

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