ux

There are 2 posts tagged ux (this is page 1 of 1).

3 ingredients of creating a great App

Ah.. we’re in 2016. Creating an app has never been quicker + easier than now!

If you have about US$5k and access to a good app developer, you can create an app.

At the same time, creating just an app does not matter much: In 2008, just creating an app was enough but today it would be half-witted to expect that.

Now, people have enough experiences to differentiate between an ordinary app and a great app.

People have good options to get their things done. More than one option in most cases.

When people did not have options, creating an ordinary app worked well. Not anymore.

Imagine that you’re traveling in a desert and you’re extremely thirsty:

You are halfway and you do not have a drop of water in your water bottle. You have been 
searching for a water source but you haven't found one yet.

A group of villege-men passes by and you ask them if they can offer you a glass of water.

They want to charge $500 for a glass of non-purified water which has sand particles.

You pay them and drink water.

What if you're in your hometown with abundance of purifie water at your disposal?

You ignore villege-men's offer, don't you?

In the App World, users have an abundance of purified water :). They’ll ignore you if you offer them dirty water. An ordinary app is like dirty water; a great app is like purified!

Here are the 3 Ingredients of Creating a Great App

great app

I reiterate – the below 3 are the ingredients of creating a great app:

  1. Attention to UX: Attention to UX will make the app more relevant to the user.
  2. Continuous testing: Continuous testing will instill the right habits for your app success.
  3. Measuring the right metrics: Measuring the right metrics will tell you how you’re doing against your app success goals.

A great app is made with users in mind, tested continuously and measured against the right goals.

A great app also means that the life of people associated with creating or consuming the app will be great. Users want it so their needs are fulfilled. Since users use it more, founders make more $$$, and since startup and its founders make more money, the programmers get to spend a lot of time on the hacktivities that make them happy :).

Great App = Great Life: for Founders; for Programmers; for Users! #startups #ux Click To Tweet

If you learn to make an app great, you learn to better your life. This is no exaggeration!

How to Create a Great App

The process of making an app great is the process of making anything great: may it be a strategy, customer service, organization management, personal leadership, writing skill, or a relationship!

The reason it is so difficult to focus on these 3 important ingredients is that it requires you to acknowledge that your original execution was imperfect.

#Startup world is looking for ppl who continuously work(hard or smart or whatever)to make it work! Click To Tweet

Is unconditional commitment to continuous improvement a part of your startup vision?

If not, it is going to be more difficult. If yes, you have an edge. Leverage it!

Return On UX

You’ve heard of Return on Investment, I know. But have you heard of Return on User Experience or RoUX as I call it?

Or, if you’ve heard, have your attentively thought about it?

ROI is easy to measure. You invest your dollars, measure the metrics, optimize and win (or lose).

But RoUX?

It takes awareness, guts, resourcing, intention to serve the humanity and the more important…the willingness to act even if your actions may be criticized … all these and what do you get in return?

It’s easy to hire the most expensive UX expert. It’s possible to train a junior who has substance married with guts. But it’s not easy to observe the benefits of better UX in terms of returns.

Your objectives will drive your decisions.

As a retail store owner, if your objective is to make the maximum possible profit from every footprint that you receive, you won’t be much worried about the feelings your customers carry while waiting on the Cash Counter for 20 mins to pay for their $5000 purchase.

But, if, for you, the customers who visit your store are more than just “footprints”, then you might figure out a way where select salespersons will go to the customer, talk to them humanely, and make sure that their billing is done without they standing in a long billing queue.

What would be the RoUX in such case?

Reduced marketing costs? More on-target sales force? The feel-good factor in your staff? More sale?

All of these are actually the by-product of better UX.

Better UX, as I see it, ensures that the person at the receiving end, is treated as a living being, his worldview is respected and he’s rewarded for shopping in your shop.

What would you do if you were that customer? Would you hesitate to recommend that retail store to everyone you know?

No chance.

The real RoUX will be the delighted users who will become your raving fans.

And the good thing about fans is they want to buy your products without being asked. I wanted to buy an iPhone before it was launched. I want to buy iPhone 6 which is not yet officially announced!

Apple is doing something right. It has kept my eagerness alive about what they have to offer next. They don’t need to spend on PPC or mobile advertisements to “sell” their upcoming iPhone which may be just an incremental update from their previous version.

That’s the REAL Return on UX!

Better UX reduces the need for investing time to figure out marketing gimmicks to win the competition. Better UX is more than better engineering, it is a better way of living a better life …