Let's take a look at how user research influences the creation of mobile applications, and what measures owners of products and companies developing mobile applications can take into account for the successful operation of the application.
A technology product that is not related to its user will never be successful.
It has been proven again and again that if a product does not meet the user's requirements, it is doomed to failure, even if it is supported by technical giants.
Top failed mobile apps
Here are some examples of mobile applications that have failed. The reasons why this happened may be different, but you will find that all of them are explained by inaccuracy in understanding user preferences.
Apple Music
People downloaded this app, but they didn’t know what to do with it or how it differs from iTunes. Result? The report says that after downloading 48% of users have never used the iTunes application.
In addition, users encountered many problems with downloading an application for iOS, in the end they decided to stop using it.
Hailo
In early 2013, the Hailo mobile app received an investment of $ 100 million. By October 2014, the developer company went bankrupt.
Failure was a classic example of the lack of user research.
Mobile application was created to provide good prices for a yellow taxi in New York. But it missed one important factor — most yellow taxi drivers did not use mobile devices.
Although the same business model worked in London!
For all owners of software products Hailo gives an excellent lesson.
Every company that develops mobile apps should always encourage business owners, especially small business owners, to refrain from making assumptions and make fact-based decisions.
Yik yak
If you do not know who your users are and what they can do with your platform, your software product may suffer the same fate as Yik Yak.
This popular mobile app raised 75 million dollars in 2013, and by 2014 its market value was about 400 million dollars.
Can you even imagine that in 2 years its load has plummeted by 75%, and in the next, in 2017, it had to close its operations?
Something went wrong?
Mobile application Yik Yak was designed for schoolchildren and students. This is an anonymous messaging application. At the initial stage, it gained immense popularity, but since the owners of mobile applications did not exactly match the school and college environments, they could not curb the trolling and abuse that most Yik Yak users suffered.
They initially limited the number of users, but this led to a sharp decrease in the number of downloads, which eventually became irreversible.
Lesson learned: In the development of mobile applications, user research is fundamental to a successful software product.
Reasons why conducting user research is crucial for developing mobile applications
At the initial stage, owners must create a vision of the software product.
This vision should be based on user research that answers key questions about users and how they tend to respond to certain functions of mobile applications.
This can be achieved by creating a prototype product for users with a certain understanding of their preferences. Conducting user research for this prototype can help you in three ways:
Creating designs that are relevant to users
Researching users and their preferences is the only way that product owners can instill a love for their mobile app. This research can help your mobile application development company create projects that people will love and use.
Empathic design helps to understand the real, unexpressed and unmet needs of customers.
The way people relate to each other in the real world creates a basis for communication.
For example, Yik Yak quickly became popular among the younger generation, but product owners could not identify the problems faced by schoolchildren and students.
Providing them a platform for communication without establishing the rules of communication turned out to be disastrous for the Yik Yak team.
Requires rigorous user research from different perspectives. This would allow mobile application owners to expect short-term and long-term social and financial implications.
Business owners should make sure that the mobile application development company has good designers who understand empathic design.
Development of mobile application features that are easy to use and interesting.
No matter how experienced your mobile application development company is, it will be difficult for them to create a product that users will love to use until they have a clear idea of the functions they need.
As the owner of a mobile application, you must be guided by the preferences and desires of users.
“If the user has a problem, this is our problem”, - Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple computers.
When creating custom tests, ask the following important questions:
1. Who are your users?
2. What is their social class?
3. How educated are they?
4. What is their working environment?
Your mobile app users may be highly educated, but their work environment is such that they cannot use your app properly, then no matter how good the functions are, your app is doomed.
Read about trends in the mobile application development market in 2019 here.
Your mobile application should have a high utilization rate, and an experienced mobile application development company can help you with this if it knows your users well.
Key factors that mobile application developers and product owners should consider when developing:
Users do not have the same level of experience
You can be an expert of your product, designers and application developers can have a lot of knowledge about the latest technologies, but they are not going to use the product. Both product owners and companies developing mobile apps should have a propensity to look at things from the user's point of view.
Your users, the market and technology are progressing, so be consistent in your research.
You must be realists here. Users get tired if they do not find something unique and interesting with time, the market continues to change depending on the demand of new users, and technological innovations need to be changed.
To cope with this, mobile application designers must test the design right up to the final product launch. Ask the custom mobile application development company to continue testing prototypes until the very end of the mobile application development process.
Understanding ROI in a Mobile Application
Your mobile application and all the features that you want to have in it should lead to an increase in ROI. User research will help you identify the features that will enable you to achieve the same.
It has been observed that managers and stakeholders do not give priority to research.
They are mainly focused on the work of mobile application developers and UX designers. Remember that no matter how advanced your product is, if it is not related to users, they will not want to use it.
In addition, user research and UX designers seem burdensome for product owners, and this is where they want to drastically cut costs. The problem is that you may find an error while testing your application, but you cannot find a flaw in the design until the application falls into the hands of your users.
Conclusion
Before contacting a custom mobile application development company, make sure you have enough materials for user research.
The study of the target audience should reflect the point of view of users in general, and not just one group. In addition, demography plays an important role in determining preferences, and research should be based on various social and environmental consequences.
Key findings:
• Create a mobile application that is really relevant to your users.
• Make sure your application provides a great user experience.
• You should be aware of the profitability of your research and development.
• Contact experienced mobile application developers, such as Futureinapps!
