Building mobile first apps with the customer top of mind – Edition 1
The first impression
Mobile is the primary channel consumers use to engage with businesses, so it’s a must to deliver a mobile first experience for them in your apps.
Over the course of 4 weeks, we will take you through some fantastic examples of companies that have really nailed a consumer focused experience on mobile.
What better place to start other than at the beginning?
Most users download apps with a certain expectation of the product. You don’t have long to impress them. Users will form their opinion within 30 seconds of exploring the app.
Great apps captures a user from the onset and quickly explains the main features of the product. This sets an expectation of what your product will deliver.
Here are 3 techniques to captivate your user right away:
1. Hold Your Consumers Hand Through the Product Walkthrough.
The Google Gmail app offers a new user a tour through some of the featured benefits of the app. Over the course of 4 screens, the user is presented with visual examples of what the app is capable of. This is a great way to highlight new features or functionality that is not often utilized to it’s full capacity.
Some apps cannot be used without a default, one-time setup by the customer. For example, a news app asks a user to select their areas of interest. They guide a user through a quick setup by presenting them with the most popular content categories they can connect to. Making this step hassle-free is key to avoiding product abandonment.
3. Don’t leave users with twiddling thumbs – show them how to interact with your app.
Mobile phones now provide a number of interaction models and app developers are taking advantage of them to differentiate their products. If you’re creating your own non-standard interaction, some user training is a great way to familiarize the user with your app. See how Google Earth shows users through this method from the start.
