Mobile App Design - The Biggest Mistake

With a bamboozling number of mobile apps available on the iPhone and Android apps stores, it's no wonder that the majority of apps fail - they are never downloaded or rarely used.

So what's the biggest mistake you can make when starting to scope out your mobile app, what is it that will ultimately cause your app to fail?

Forget the user.  That's the one mistake many make. You get lost in your idea,  excitedly throw yourself into developing your baby and - it's so very easy to forget who will be using the app once it's live.  Kipling wrote a great short poem ("I Keep Six Honest Serving Men") of which the opening lines could be referring to how he writes such perfect and engaging stories and are equally valid for anyone creating anything, including mobile apps.  It goes something like this:

I keep six honest serving men

They taught me all I knew

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who

In his excellent book, Tapworthy, Josh Clark uses the five W's that Kipling refers to in his checklist for any mobile app designer who wants to create something users will love and want to engage with.

Tapworthy, Josh Clark, O'Reilly, 2010 

Who, why, what, where and when
Five of Kiplings Honest Serving men are a valuable measure of how successful your app can be. The 'who' is the user or users, what will the app do for the user, why will the user want to use it and when and where will they use it.

Answering the Why question is easy for Clark, people use a mobile app when they're multitasking, when they are local or when they are bored.  You can go beyond this though and drill down into what need the app fulfills and what value it adds to the users life.  This could be as simple as keeping them entertained when on a long, tedious train journey or it could be as specific as "saving them money by avoiding missing submitting their tax return on time".

Remember the when and where because your app will need to suit the use case scenario.  If your app is to be used at home, on the couch, you probably want to provide a rich experience with lots of features, interaction and information.  The user will have time to browse and delve into the features and data of the app.  If, however, they are in a busy railway station, laden with bags and desperate to get a train home, they'll want an app that is easy to read, quick to access the key information (e.g. the next train home) and can be operated with one hand (or no hands at all maybe!).  The phone will be jerking around as they scuttle across the station forecourt so the icons and information on the screen should be clear and easy to read.

If you remember these questions and repeatedly ask them of yourself during the design of the app, you should end up with an app design that is useful to your target audience at the time and place they are most likely to want to use it.  Too often designers focus on the What, even then basing it on what they want from the app and not what the user wants and needs. Then they will jump right in and introduce themselves to Kiplings sixth man - 'How'.  How will the icons look, how will the algorithms work etc etc. The other Ws suddenly get forgotten and hence the developer forgets the point if the app in the first place and from then on it is doomed to fail.

The message is, the user is king for without users you have don't really have an app, you just have yet another entry in the iTunes store...