The cost of a bad app

Revisiting my earlier, "How's your mobile experience," Forrester's "Good Apps, Bad Apps: The Cost Of Creating Exceptional Mobile Moments Through Mobile Apps" give a clear insight into the apps market and the lessons being learned by developers - often hard lessons. There's much in that report that is worth digesting, but while I'm still on my hobby horse about apps that have annoyed or impressed me of late (there are many), I'm just going to look at five areas that Forrester call out.

1. When it comes to apps, it's a user's market.
If an app doesn't give a user what they want, they'll look elsewhere for one that does.  Or, from personal experience, they won't bother at all.  I tried using my bank's mobile app some time ago and frustrated by the experience of having to continually re-input and re-select data from one screen to the next, I reverted to their website interface. Entering text on a mobile is not an exact science, particularly when you've got clumsy great digits like I have.  The interface and requirement for user interaction should be simple and intuitive.

2. Successful apps give users "mobile moments".
The experience of using an app should combine functionality and performance at the right time. So, if I decide to give my bank another try at getting it right (which won't be anytime soon, but let's go with that for now), their app should deliver the information I want in such a way that is tailored to my mobile experience. The mobile interface and the way content is delivered to and presented through will decide whether users come back for more.

Another example of this was when I tried to book tickets via my mobile.  The pop-up keyboard completely obscured the box I was trying to fill out, so I was left blindly trying to input my credit card number. All the while, the number of available tickets was shrinking fast. I got there in the end but my mobile moment in using that app was one of frustration and just maybe a little bit shouty.

On the other hand, consider something like National Rail's app, which is tailored beautifully for the smaller screen. Data can be input simply, responses are delivered in a quick, fun and friendly way and the experience of discovering my train has just been cancelled is improved considerably.

3. Mobile development is maturing, with both investment and use still subject to experimentation.
With over 1.5 billion smartphones in operation, enterprises know that if they want to reach customers, they need to have an app.  It's important to invest the time and money required to develop an app which engages the user, delivers what they want and helps them to do whatever it is the app helps them do, better.  But of course they don't always get it right first time. Few rarely do.  What matters though, is giving the user a worthwhile experience from the first iteration. It doesn't have to offer everything the enterprise aspires to do via its app, but it must at least perform a core set of functions and do it well.

I'm a staunch supporter of the Pebble smartwatch. Now Pebble were a small start-up who found themselves overwhelmed with orders thanks to two hugely successful Kickstarter campaigns. They came close to becoming a victim of their own success on several fronts, not least with the phone-based app they developed to manage the data to and from the watch. The first generation watch didn't even have an app for many months after it was launched. And when it did finally come along, it was iOS only - the Android version was some months behind.  A couple of years and many versions later they still haven't got it 100% right - the app is sometimes slow to respond, not always as intuitive as it should be and updated functionality seems slow to arrive at times.

But every iteration of the app has delivered what was promised. It works, it manages the watch effectively and it's a useful front-end to the bewildering variety of watchfaces and apps that the watch can run.  And it did all of those things from day one.

Pepsi's Amp Up app

4. There are significant benefits to getting an app right and they're not just the ones you might think of.  When a customer is happy with their mobile experience they will come back for more. An app that works, that delivers a good experience engages the user. And an engaged user has the potential to become an advocate for the enterprise as well as improving their productivity.  The two most popular app stores, Apple's and Google's, enable purchasers to leave instant and public feedback on the software they download - and that feedback affects the brand of the app developer.  But

Pepsi's Amp Up Before you Score app, released in the distant past that is now 2009, was a game aimed at men designed to help them pick up one of 24 in-game female stereotypes.

I know, right? Needless to say there was an entirely justified outcry from consumers and media, alike, and the app was quietly pulled.  Read The Guardian's article on that whole sorry affair.

5. Understand your cost drivers and how to manage them
A comprehensive understanding of the cost drivers behind your app can mean the difference between saving up to 10% on development costs or doubling them.  How does the app fit into the enterprise's overall strategy; what does the enterprise hope to gain from the app, how will it simplify customer or employee interactions, what is its planned impact on productivity, what resources are available

It all comes down to the question of why the app is being created and how it fits into your business model.  And when bearing those elements in mind, the prime concern is how all of this makes the life of your user or your employee just that little bit better.

A side effect of the mobile, always-on experience is that our attention spans have shrunk. The app user needs to be able to get what they want quickly and with no fuss.  Therefore, an effective app must balance form against function. Complex data and processing must be represented in a highly simplistic, intuitive way. That's a challenge, but it's one the enterprise must face up to.  A bad experience on the part of the user means they will be reluctant to go back for a second try.