Remember that dancing banana app that sings peanut butter jelly time? No? Exactly, because I’m probably the only person who downloaded it, only to delete it moments after opening.
My experience with the dancing banana app is the first thing that came to mind when Rameet and Ryan, the founders of NYC app design startup Fueled, shared their goal to build apps that don’t fall into the DSD – Download, Smile, Delete – category.
With over 1.2 million apps in the iOS store alone, building homepage worthy apps (think Mailbox, Evernote, and Wunderlist) has become companies biggest challenge.
After coding since he was 12 years old and pioneering the first open source coding platform, we knew there was no greater person to turn to about creating habit forming apps than LiveCode’s and CEO, Kevin Miller.
Here’s what he shared with us at this year’s RunRevLive Conference:
- Build a lightweight application quickly and get it out your target audience. Determine which features they like and dislike – What can you remove to simplify their experience?
- Overthink your beta period by working extremely closely with users; Talk to them constantly and you’ll successfully design a solution to their needs.
- Don’t rely on digital feedback – Invite your customers to the meeting room and ask them what they think.
- Introduce new features individually and as you build them; This will allow you to avoid building the wrong solution.
- Build an app that is useful on an ongoing basis – If a feature can’t be utilized in the long term it’s likely best to remove it.
- Just like Rameet and Ryan said, forget about going viral – Your app should be a solid technology product not a marketing campaign.