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    Tapping In: 21 Strategies for Building Viral Mobile Apps People Will Love
    Tapping In: 21 Strategies for Building Viral Mobile Apps People Will Love
    Tapping In: 21 Strategies for Building Viral Mobile Apps People Will Love
    Ebook127 pages2 hours

    Tapping In: 21 Strategies for Building Viral Mobile Apps People Will Love

    By David Paul Albert

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    About this ebook

    Get your mobile app found, installed, loved and shared.

    You're convinced your app will be a hit, yet you know the odds—only 20 percent of users return to use an app the first day after they download it, and you're competing with nearly one hundred thousand new apps pouring into the market each month.

    Apps don't fail due to competition or bad ideas—they fail because of poor user experience, lack of customer support, inability to keep the app top of mind and not enough promotion.

    Whether you simply have a great idea, want to improve an existing app, or know how to code but lack the skills to create a killer user experience, this book will show you how to:

    • Apply successful traits from the top-grossing apps to your own apps
    • Take advantage of tactics to get more exposure and stand out among the competition
    • Design an amazing user experience to immediately hook new users
    • Leverage proven techniques to drive engagement and usage
    • Make your app habit-forming
    • Spread your app virally via word of mouth

    In addition, Tapping In includes a comprehensive questionnaire and road map when planning and building your app.

    With 21 easily digestible, actionable strategies, Tapping In is a must-read before embarking on your next mobile app conquest!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Paul Albert
    Release dateDec 4, 2014
    ISBN9781311946232
    Tapping In: 21 Strategies for Building Viral Mobile Apps People Will Love
    Author

    David Paul Albert

    David Paul Albert began developing for the Mobile Web before the days of smartphones and tablets, building .mobi sites running on feature phones. Shortly after the release of the initial iOS SDK, he had the pleasure of working with clients such as Cirque du Soleil, Consumer Reports, Visa and others to develop successful apps and strategies for the burgeoning mobile app landscape. He’s currently a co-founder of Greygoo, a boutique digital product development agency located in Naperville, Illinois where he continues to work with startups and leading brands to bring app ideas from concept to market. During momentary spurts of free time, David enjoys hanging out with loved ones, cooking, taking care of his cadre of amphibians (yeah, you read that right) and riding his Triumph Bonneville motorcycle.

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      Book preview

      Tapping In - David Paul Albert

      One

      Don’t Get Uninstalled

      So your app got installed. Your days/weeks/months of hard work are finally in the hands of a real live user! Congrats…oh wait…WTF? They opened it, looked at it for exactly 41 seconds, then exited out and deleted it?

      Crap.

      All too often this is the reality. We’ve all done it—the app didn’t match the description, it crashed, it didn’t make sense, the registration process was too long, the search returned no results…the list goes on. There are countless reasons why an app might only live on a user’s device for as long as it takes to eat a cracker.

      Before you can make a truly great app—one that stays top of mind, becomes a habit and goes viral—you have one simple but elusive goal:

      Get the user to use your app more than once.

      This chapter provides seven fundamental Strategies to help you achieve that goal…

      Strategy 1: Make UX Your Unfair Advantage

      Focus on the user and all else will follow.

      – Google

      (From the section, What we believe http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/

      )

      User experience, or UX for short, is a broad term that encompasses any interaction a user will have with your app. Consider every aspect as part of the user experience. If a user creates an account and then receives updates via email, those emails are part of the user experience. If the app sends a notification, user experience. Seeing a friend’s Facebook status update that includes a link back to the app—user experience. 

      Every touchpoint you have with a user, or potential user, is part of the experience you’ve created. A great user experience is one in which every aspect of these touchpoints are executed flawlessly, are frictionless, provide an opportunity to engage with users and reach beyond your installed user base.

      Within the app itself, every tap, swipe, input and movement is an opportunity to surprise and delight your users with effective feedback mechanisms.

      Exceptional user experiences include:

      An elegant and aesthetically pleasing User Interface (UI)

      Instant gratification—within seconds users are getting value from the app, not learning how to use it

      Consistency—common elements like navigation, color schemes, icon styles, etc., don’t change from view to view. A consistent design language is used throughout the entire experience.

      Intuitive—the design is there to serve the user, not get in their way. Navigation, searching, sharing, accessing content—every aspect of the app is intuitive, easy to understand and easy to use.

      UX is Your Unfair Advantage

      Unless you’ve invented the next Instagram, in any given category there are several—if not dozens—of apps providing similar functionality, content or utility. By creating an exceptional user experience, users will engage with your app on a more frequent and deeper level. As a result, you can expect to:

      Strengthen brand loyalty and affinity

      Generate more in-app purchases (if that’s your revenue model)

      Increase impressions and revenue (if your app is ad-supported)

      Create word-of-mouth to increase app installs without spending money on marketing

      Design makes the difference between customer satisfaction and customer delight.

      – Giles Peyton-Nicoll

      Aesthetics Matter

      A beautiful, elegant design can be the distinction between users choosing your app over a competitor’s. Your app may have superior content, functionality and ease of use, but if it looks amateurish or even slightly less polished than the next listing in a search result, it’s easily overlooked. Conversely, a beautifully designed app will instantly boost its credibility and perceived trust.

      Hipmunk and HotelsByMe

      If you never heard of either of these travel-booking apps, which would you choose?

      You may have the greatest content or functionality, but if it isn’t packaged well, your app will be swimming upstream. Focus on great design to stand out among the competition. Great design doesn’t come cheap or easy, but it can mean the difference between a big hit or just another Zombie App.

      If you’re not a designer (or a great one), then it’s worth partnering or investing in someone who is.

      Keep it Simple and Focused

      The most successful apps are focused on doing one thing exceptionally well. Google Maps is exceptional at providing turn-by-turn directions to a destination. Instagram is exceptional at taking pics, making them interesting and sharing them with your friends. WhatsApp is exceptional at providing real-time messaging, connecting people with one another throughout the world.

      While it’s very feature-rich, Google Maps doesn’t try to do too much. Google is keenly aware of what its users want and doesn’t crowd the app with features or content they don’t.

      It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to do too much with an app. With few exceptions, Swiss Army knife apps rarely do well. Those that have succeeded strive to provide a seamless, continuous experience through every facet of the app.

      Strategy1-Waze-opt

      Waze (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/waze-social-gps-maps-traffic/id323229106?mt=8

      ) excels at aggregating crowd-sourced content to provide real-time traffic conditions and doesn’t try to add a bunch of unnecessary features.

      Most often the best ideas are the simplest. Resist the temptation to be all things to all people. If you have a plethora of good ideas for functionality, explore breaking them up into multiple apps, or focus on your best idea.

      UX Guidelines

      User Experience is a broad topic with professionals who have dedicated their entire careers to its craft. However, there are some guidelines to consider as you plan and design your app:

      Visual data is processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text¹.Where it makes sense and you have the choice, always choose visuals over text to convey a concept, present content or provide elements users can interact with.

      Once you have your app idea, create simple user flow diagrams before diving into visuals. Ryan Singer wrote a great article (https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1926-a-shorthand-for-designing-ui-flows) on designing simple UI flows drafted with just a pen and paper.

      Always provide positive feedback and affirmation for the user. For example, if a user uploads a photo then returns to a gallery, the photo should be immediately present. Don’t make users refresh a view to see updated content. Your app should respond accordingly to all their

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