Category: Business

Categories
Business

6 tough questions on app business models and strategies

[VisionMobile’s Andreas Pappas was recently quizzed on app business models, best practices and strategies for developers and entrepreneurs. In this post we’re presenting the most interesting questions and answers from this interview. These are tough questions that all developers and entrepreneurs are faced with in the early stages of their ventures.]

 Print

Q1: I am thinking of developing my own mobile app: What are the main business models I can use to make money and how do I select the right one for my idea?

There are numerous factors to take into account when developing your business model but the two key questions you have to ask are:

  1. What problem am I trying to solve?

  2. How am I solving this problem?

Once you have answered these two questions, you will be in a much better position to develop a business model. A good place to start from is the Business Model Canvas, a simple tool that outlines the key areas that a business model needs to address.

A number of areas within your business model are interdependent. For example, your target market will initially be defined by the problem you are solving. Once you have identified your target market you can start thinking about revenue models, marketing, partnerships, distribution etc.

While it helps to get everything right the first time, it is most likely that you will need to adapt both your product and your business model several times along the way.

From an economics perspective, a large number of successful business models these days are built on two-sided networks and even multi-sided networks. These are usually services that connect businesses to consumers or consumers to consumers, such as, for example AirBnB and eBay type services. These models exhibit powerful network effects if they manage to scale up and allow owners to monetise either one side of the network (e.g. consumers or businesses) or both (e.g. commission-based) depending on the application.

[tweetable]When it comes to making money, there is a variety of revenue models available[/tweetable] and the selection is to some extent dependant on your business model, competition, target market, and exit strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here.

Free services can scale up quickly but monetisation may be problematic. So if your business plan requires scale, think about indirect income sources such as advertising or even VC funding, to get you through the growth phase. Once you’ve achieved scale, an exit is an option you should consider: user acquisition is expensive and larger businesses will frequently opt for acquisitions rather than organic growth.

[tweetable]Advertising may be profitable but requires massive scale and even then, getting it right is tricky[/tweetable]. Advertising is more popular on Android and WP than on iOS, due to the fact that Android users are not as heavy spenders as iOS users.

Obviously app-stores allow developers to monetise their apps directly, via paid downloads or in-app purchases. The latter has become increasingly popular, particularly on iOS and competes favourably against paid-downloads.

Beyond these obvious ones there is a range of options that have to do with the type of app/service that one is providing. For example, apps offering content or services (e.g. news apps or some fitness apps) may utilise a subscription model. This app business model is not easy to pull off though – even popular newspapers are struggling to make money off subscriptions.

 Advertising most popular revenue model

Q2: I am a mobile developer. Which sectors have the most potential in my country?

The good thing about mobile apps is the fact that the market is global and the costs and barriers to reach international markets are very low compared to other, more traditional businesses. So mobile app development should not be seen in the traditional way of “what works in my local market” but instead, from the viewpoint of “what works in the markets that I want/I am well placed to reach”. In short, any sector has potential in your country if your focus is international and it should be international-first.

While this change in mindset is critical, that is not to say that there are no opportunities locally. If one is developing apps that rely on local content or services (e.g. transport services) then highly localised content is required. So it may be easier for local developers to source and access this content, although this is not always the case.

One would think, for example, that local travel/tourism apps would be more successful since they’re optimised for each region. However, the most successful apps in this sector are global because they have scale. [tweetable]For most apps, scale is critical and thinking locally can only get you so far[/tweetable].

Q3: What is more difficult? Coding or marketing the app?

The consensus among developers says marketing. While adopting new languages, frameworks, SDKs and APIs may pose challenges, it is usually a straightforward matter of learning to use new technology. For most developers, marketing has been uncharted territory until the very first app-store appeared. Mobile marketing is quite a different beast to anything that was available before iPhone-era smartphones. Even digital marketing specialists may find the landscape too perplexing since the strategies, practices and even the KPIs are in constant flux. Constant experimentation (in other words trial-and-error) is one of the strategies most frequently used in order to find out what works best in your case.

Q4: What are the best ways to do marketing for my app and acquire users/downloads etc?

😉 See above. The best advice is to try several options and see how they work for your particular case. Before you pay for any advertising or promotion network, try some textbook marketing methods that are still of great value:

#1 Cross-promotion

If you have several apps, make sure you promote your other apps through them. Of course this must be done in a way that will not annoy your users. If you can promote your app through other apps, that’s also a good idea.

#2 Become part of an ecosystem/platform

Make your app work with other apps if this is an option. For example, if you’ve developed a fitness app that could work with Withings or Runkeeper, why not make it work with these and gain more visibility through their own ecosystem?

#3 Do some PR

Let people know about your app. Send emails or press releases to popular websites, newspapers and anyone with a sizeable reach. Most of them may not respond but it’s definitely worth a try and there are several success stories that started this way.

After you’ve done the above, there are plenty of options to try, depending on your marketing budget. If you have determined how valuable each customer is to you, then you can hire a mobile marketing expert to handle all your marketing activities and pay them per customer acquired.

Q5: What are the most common mistakes that mobile app developers do and how can I avoid them?

#1 Failing to see app development as a business

[tweetable]The best technology solution is not good enough without the right business models and execution[/tweetable]. This is one of the best known principles in the area of technology strategy. Developers that lack business experience often fail on the commercial side of the business.

#2 Failing to prepare for success

The nature, scale and pace of the app economy is such that in a matter of days your user based may grow from tens to tens of thousand users. Will your back-end cope? Will you be able to pay for third-party API calls utilised in your app? If not, what may have been initially a great service, will fail due to poor customer experience or you may run out of money. A proper business case should anticipate success.

#3 Failing to pivot/adapt

A common advice in the startup world is “pivot till you die”. If your idea is not working try applying it on a different market, adapt it to the current market, flip it on its head or scrap it altogether and go for something else.

#4 Failing to know and listen to your users

In a market where consumer switching costs are so low and a user can easily replace your app with the competitor’s app, user experience and customer support are critical success factors. Your app will be deleted if it crashes repeatedly, if it is poorly designed, or does not deliver what it says on the tin. Test your app, test it again, use crash-reporting and user-analytics services and keep it up to date, implementing new features and listening to user feedback.

Q6: Is it better to try to innovate with a never-seen app, or is it better to be a follower?

Neither is easy and both can work. The advantage of being a follower is that you learn from others’ mistakes and failures. You may for example see what is not so good or what is missing from an app and fill the gap, or extend it into another market. The downside is that by the time you do it, others will probably be trying to do it too, so there will be more competition. You don’t just need a better app, you also need better execution, i.e. a better business model and marketing, in order to topple the leader.

On the other hand, a new, innovative idea can take you a long way before the competition catches up (although never at a safe distance) but it is more difficult to create a niche and then expand it.

[tweetable]While most developers develop apps they want to use themselves, this should not be the only criterion for developing your ideas[/tweetable]. At the very least, discussing with users, friends or researching the market can get you a long way.

Those developers that extend tried and tested ideas into new markets are usually more successful. That doesn’t mean that you can just copy an app; you have to adapt the business model to the new market at the very least. In the app economy innovation is not limited to technology but extends to business models too.

Successful developers grow by extending to new verticals

Comments? More advice? Feel free to start the conversation.

Andreas Pappas

Follow me on twitter @PappasAndreas

Categories
Business

App monetisation: Games vs. Enterprise and Business Apps

The mobile apps business is maturing and while most of the media attention is still focussed on the latest app store success stories, developers are finding lots of better ways to improve app monetisation. Considering all revenue sources, which categories of application are generating the most money and what’s the competition like on each platform?

DE12c3_web

App Stores not the answer?

In our last developer economics survey we asked developers to give us a breakdown of their revenue from different sources. Of the 1,695 developers earning between $1/month and $5 million/month who reported their revenue breakdown to us, 55% generated some of their income from app stores. There is a negative correlation between the fraction of revenue an organisation earns from app stores and the total revenue they earn per person involved in app development. That is, the more you rely on app stores for revenue, the less you are likely to make any. By excluding those with revenues above $5 million/month, we’re ignoring the very top of the store charts where the bulk of app store revenue is made. However, this is just a handful of developers, who would otherwise have an extremely disproportionate effect on the average. It’s also worth noting that [tweetable]there are limited costs involved in app store publishing but it produces the lowest average revenues of all sources[/tweetable] in our survey – it’s clearly not the easiest way to build a profitable app business.

Is there gold anywhere but games?

With games accounting for around 75-80% of all app store revenues it’s possibly not surprising that they were the most popular category of app amongst the developers in our survey. Given the chart above it shouldn’t be surprising that they are far from the most profitable (~$2,500/person/month more than the lowest mean income and the lowest overall median income). So [tweetable]which were the most profitable app categories? Business Productivity and Enterprise apps[/tweetable]. However, there are some significant differences between platforms so it’s worth playing with the interactive chart below to spot any opportunities that might be of interest.

[tweetable]Median developer revenues are higher on iOS than Android across all categories[/tweetable], but in some categories mean revenues are higher on Android. This shows that there are some developers managing to exploit the much larger market on Android successfully but most developers are still financially better off on iOS, including revenues from outside the app stores. Where average revenues across all platforms were higher than either iOS or Android, web developers were usually making the most revenue in that category.

The averages in the charts above still hide a lot of potentially interesting detail on where the best opportunities in the apps market are. Those wanting a more complete analysis should look at our App Economy Forecasts report.

Categories
Business

How to price your app

To matter on the App Store, your app needs to be priced at 99¢, right? Or does it?

Making money from your app is really difficult. Pricing is intuitively an important part of the potential of any app. Price too high, and you price yourself out of the market, but price too low, and you’re leaving preciously needed money on the table.

Michael Jurewitz comes to the rescue! In a five part blog post series, the Apple veteran explains the ins and outs of app pricing, tackling crucial issues like differentiation, pricing power, price elasticity and a practical plan to optimise prices based on your app’s data. Our favorite take-away? Solve a difficult and important problem. Then charge what your software is worth. A must read for every developer who seeks to rise above the app poverty line.

The posts are based on a talk  from the Çingleton and NSConference events.

Michael Jurewitz – Çingleton 2012 from Çingleton on Vimeo.

Categories
Business

How better app quality results in more downloads and revenue

While the link between app quality and app success is quite clear to most developers, it’s always good to throw in some actual data. Happy to oblige.

A very nice visualization of the US iOS App Store over  at App Store Rankings shows that a 4.5-star app gets downloaded on average 3.7x more often than a 3.5-star app (265K downloads versus 71K). Our own research has shown that developers that use performance or user analytics tools to improve their apps generate about 3x as much revenue on average.

Higher revenues for developers using dev tools

The team over at Appurify have added another piece of the puzzle. They analyzed the top 100 free apps in the App Store as of May 2013 to investigate the impact of common performance issues (e.g., crashing, lagging, and slow load times) on app reviews. Analysis components included: number of total reviews; number of “most critical” reviews; number of “most critical” reviews attributable to performance; keyword counts for frequently-occurring descriptors including “crash,” “fail,” “laggy,”  “battery,” and “slow”.  A clear majority of 1-star reviews featured reports of poor app performance.

Likewise, an analysis of 25 million individual app reviews showed that the most frequently-used words in 1-star reviews were mostly tied to poor performance (e.g., work, time, fix) and lacked the positive performance-related descriptors in 5-star reviews (e.g., easy, great, fun).

 

appurify-analysis
Source: Appurify. Republished with permission.

The action point for developers is clear. Here are some tools that you might use to improve your app’s quality.

[sectors ids=’102,100,106,36′]

 

Categories
Business

Engagement drives In-App Purchases for games, says Apsalar

Today’s most successful developers are giving their apps away in the app store for free, and, if done correctly, it’s an effective monetization model. At the end of October, of the top 15 grossing apps in the Apple app store, 14 of them are completely free.

This model can be both lucrative (when done correctly) and nerve-wracking, since companies are spending time and resources developing and marketing a product that they subsequently give away for free.

Fortunately for developers thinking about making a game, Apsalar’s Big Data Lab has gathered insights on some 400M unique active devices to help developers make better decisions and figure out what genres of game app developers should be making more of in order to maximize revenue.

For this report, we examined data on millions of in-app purchases. Our goal is to try and inform developers with knowledge on which game categories are most effective at driving in-app purchases and how engagement correlates to purchase events.

Strategy, Trivia & Adventure most effective at driving IAP

IAP_1

Our data shows Strategy, Trivia, Adventure, Family, and Role Playing games have the highest propensity for in-app purchases. Also noteworthy is the significant drop-off between the top 5 and the bottom 5 categories, as the “Simulation” category has generated about half as many in-app purchases as the “role-playing games” category. One more interesting data point on the above is how low “Action” games rank in terms of in-app purchases. The shift from predominantly casual games on mobile to more hardcore games (i.e., Infinity Blade, Rage of Bahamut, etc.) has driven some companies, who previously pioneered casual games to consider building a hardcore, action game. This data suggests that companies looking to expand beyond casual games should actually consider strategic, role-playing games as viable alternatives.

The next piece of data we looked into was average daily session length by app category. This data shows us how long users have been spending on average per day inside these games.

IAP_2

The sweet spot in terms of engagement is around 2 minutes. Interestingly, while arcade games have an extremely high average daily session length (as seen in the previous graph), they generate a relatively low number of in-app purchases.  One possibility may be that these games actually monetize best not by the freemium model, but by a business model known as paymium. In the paymium model, developers have users download free versions of their games then generate revenue by upgrading their users to, for instance, a $.99 or $2.99 paid product.

Strong correlation between IAP and engagement

The graph below presents a consistent picture between engagement and monetization, except for 2 game categories:

  • Arcade- High engagement with low monetization
  • Trivia- Relatively low engagement with very high monetization

IAP_4

The graph shows almost a straight correlation for all the data points, except for Arcade and Trivia, noted above. Trivia doesn’t appear to be an outlier though. That category generates a healthy level of in-app purchases but is still in a high engagement quadrant. The outlier is Arcade. This category has similar engagement to Trivia, Role-playing and Family (three categories that are high in in-app purchases), yet is at the bottom of in-app purchases.

A key observation is that there is no game category falling in the top left quadrant (i.e. low engagement + high in-app purchases). Which means that game developers have no chance of generating in-app purchases without high engagement.

So the key takeaway for developers using the freemium model is that it’s still critical to first focus on building a great, engaging game in one of the categories where in-app purchases are highest. Once developers have managed to do that and have engaged users, offering in-app purchases such as special items and unique gifts is a great way to take a free app and turn it into meaningful revenue.

This post first appeared on the Apsalar blog.

Categories
Business Tips

How to beat 2/3rds of app competitors

Our mission here at Developer Economics is to help developers create a better app business. A recent survey from App Promo highlights the pain points once again, and offers some hints about the solution.

Let’s start with the bad news…

4 out of 5 developers admit that their app doesn’t make enough money to be considered a standalone business. 2 out of 3 doesn’t break even. This confirms our results from the Developer Economics 2013 report, where 67% of developers who want to earn money live under the App Poverty line (revenues of less than $500 per month).

Despite these disconcerting numbers, and despite developers indicating discovery, making money and turning the app into a business as the main challenges, most developers undervalue the importance of marketing their applications. According to the App Promo survey, 2 out of 3 developers don’t have a marketing budget, and a quarter of developers doesn’t market their app at all.

And yet there is hope. A full 81% of developers said that they would not abandon their app. App Promo found that the survivors (experienced developers with apps that are over 3 years in the market) have succeeded in creating an interesting app business. They report revenues earned to date of over half a million, 100% of them breaks even and 78% considers their app successful enough for a standalone business. And yes, they do market their apps: over half of the respondents in this group has marketing budgets of over $1000 per month.

App Promo’s results also include differences between platforms, the use of various revenue models and marketing techniques, and more. The full results can be downloaded here.

AP_DevThatCould_2

Categories
Business

Mobile Advertising versus App Store Promotion: a tale of woes and wins

As an independent developer, I ‘ve had my fair amount of successes and failures – examples of the former are TVPyx (Symbian, Windows Phone, Web) and TubeBusBike (Symbian).

Having developed apps on iOS, Android, WP, Symbian, Bada and Web – my experiences of all stores  has been mixed. As an independent developer it is increasingly difficult to get noticed in the sea of apps that are available on the various stores. I have had a fair amount of trial and error experiences with both advertising and merchandising across those stores. I ‘m here to share my experiences with both.

 There are a number of techniques available to developers that can be used to promote your app and increase downloads. Some of these you will need to pay for, some of which are just down to hard work and slick execution. Of course there is always an element of luck and right place right time usually built upon previous failures, think Rovio. I am going to concentrate on two methods of promotion.

 Advertising  and cross promotion – The method of promoting an app either through paid in-app advertising i.e. in someone else’s app/website or cross promotion through apps developed by the same publisher.

 App store promotion – The practice of promoting an app via app stores. Merchandisers (app store owner staffers) select apps by country/region to appear as featured or promoted apps on the store. Various ‘slots’ have different success rates where ‘featured’ is usually the Holy Grail in terms of maximizing eyeballs and downloads.

Advertising

Advertising using one of the mobile ad networks like Admob or an ad exchange like Inneractive is a paid-for activity i.e. you would pay for a campaign of ad impressions to promote your application in the usual advertising model. While someone like Admob may be excellent in a market like the Germany, they may lack in a specific region like Vietnam. This is where an ad exchange comes in. If you have a truly global application or specific regional needs that no one ad network can provide the required local content, an ad exchange barters on your behalf with local inventory and then serves the ad that gives you the most return.

Not all ad mechanisms are created equal, so you should take care whilst selecting one. While the fill rate may be excellent compared to a single network, the downside is that you may not be getting premium content that would be served by a truly local provider i.e. lower CPM. So while a fixed ad network can provide targeted delivery in terms of locale, an ad exchange can level the playing field especially in those maybe hard to reach areas of the globe. You need to understand your market and choose accordingly.

My personal experience of using paid-for app promotion was very disappointing. For £1000 one of my apps was involved in a campaign that consisted of a carousel with 4 ads shown in succession. The campaign as a whole  garnered 260,000 impressions. My ad was the 4th on the carousel meaning that it would be the 4th ad served once the app the ad was in was invoked. Quite far down the pecking order. From this campaign there were 82 clicks of which it is unclear whether any of these actually resulted in any downloads. No spike, no step change, just noise. The ad was targeted at UK mainly but a few other countries were involved. So quite a high customer acquisition rate!

Anecdotal evidence suggests that in some markets, advertising in apps might even have an adverse effect on downloads, as they use data which comes at a cost to the user.

App Store Promotion

Being a ‘featured’ app on any store will dramatically increase downloads. Naturally being featured in a store is likely the result of one of the following; it’s a great app, it’s a great experience, great PR, a relationship with a journalist on a national newspaper, major marketing budget, lots of hard work and maybe a bit of luck to name a few.

To get noticed by a store owner – especially an OEM – you need to consider what they as the builder of the devices are currently trying to push. For Nokia it may be imaging or mapping i.e. you are more likely to be promoted if you are harnessing one of the strengths of the business, what makes them unique. For Samsung it may be an app that integrates with their TV solutions. Segmentation considerations also work e.g. apps for a demographic that are being targeted by a particular device or devices. Building a relationship with an app store owner is a means to get promoted but this is likely to be the result of an app that meets the needs of a campaign or some quid quo pro between the developer and the likely OEM. A strong relationship or understanding of needs is required regardless of approach. I am privileged enough to have been involved a number of OEM programmes and have some close relationships with a number of OEM’s and platform providers so this approach has very much worked for me.

There are a number different areas on a store where you can be promoted; featured, staff picks etc. Some OEM’s have mini stores that usually link to their platform stores like Windows Marketplace or Play. This gives the OEM the ability to merchandise their partner apps without seeking the permission of the platform owner. Nokia has the App Highlights app shipped with all their phones, other OEM’s have their own offering.

My experience of being featured on Windows Marketplace was great for downloads as I suspect being featured would be on other stores. App Highlights worked well until Nokia changed the app due to having to try to promote more apps themselves. This meant my app started to get lost in the sheer number of apps being promoted. The latter being the inherent problem of managing app promotion on store.

Below is a graph of my own experience of being featured on Windows Marketplace and being promoted through App Highlights. There is no halo effect, as soon as the promotion stops the graph returns to the usual run rate. The implication is that you have to continue to promote and market the app to get downloads. As you can see the experience is far more positive than paid-for app advertising. Being featured represented a 1000% increase (800 downloads/day) in downloads whilst being included in App Highlights represented a 200% (160 downloads/day) increase in downloads.

Continuous promotion is crucial

There are other spikes on the graph that are not either Featured or App Highlights. The honest answer is I don’t know what caused them. I only know that my app was featured or highlighted because a) someone told me or b) I happened to know the right people. The other spikes could have been caused by promotion on other parts of the store that I was unaware of or a blog picked up on the app etc. It is usually the case that the developer is not told that their app is being promoted which seems a shame for the developer and the store owner not to be able to capitalize on the promotion.

Conclusion

To get downloads, you need to continuously promote and market your app. I experienced no halo effect, as soon as the promotion stops the graph returns to the usual run rate. For me, getting featured and highlighted was a far more effective solution than paid-for advertising. The key is to build close relationships with multiple OEM’s and platform providers and use it to deeply understand their marketing needs.

Categories
Business Tips

Why You Should Localize from Day 1 (And How to Do it Painlessly)

Continuous Localization

Localization is rarely discussed (and often overlooked by developers), but it is increasingly important in today’s economy where mobile development is a global industry. The United States ranks fourth, behind South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the number of mobile device users per capita. Singapore, Israel and a quartet of European countries round out the top 10.

Localization is certainly worth the effort. A 2007 paper by the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA), for instance, reported that $25 dollars was returned for every $1 invested in localization. And a 2012 publication from Distimo revealed that on average, applications increased their download volumes on the iPhone by greater than 128% the week after introducing the app in the user’s native language.

But localization can also be a huge undertaking.

Localization can be expensive and cumbersome

But it doesn’t have to be.

Currently, there are three approaches to translation: manual, automated, and hybrid. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks:

Manual – Employees, contractors, volunteers, or language vendors serve as translators. Emails, FTP servers, and spreadsheets are the primary tools for workflow management.

  • Benefits: Accurate, aware of brand identity, and sensitive to context, tone and style.
  • Drawbacks: Expensive, cumbersome and slow
  • Examples: Applingua, LocTeam, WordCrafts

Automated – Computer software is used to translate text from one language to another. Also known as “Machine Translation.”

  • Benefits: Fast, efficient, and low cost
  • Drawbacks: Imprecise, lacks keyword recognition, and insensitive to style
  • Examples: Google Translate, Bing Translator, SYSTRAN, SDL Language Weaver

Hybrid – Human translators are paired with a localization platform that helps automate the localization workflow for developers, product/localization managers, and translators. It brings the benefits of the manual and automated approaches and the drawbacks of neither.

  • Benefits: Efficient, accurate, and sensitive to context, style and tone.
  • Drawbacks: Initial learning curve upon startup
  • Examples: Transifex with Gengo, OneSky

After a few years of trying to build super-computers that understand human language like only a human can, the localization industry is now leaning toward the hybrid approach that still brings a great deal of processor power to bear. The difference though, is in the personal touch that only someone with skin on can provide. A machine cannot understand context or tone. A machine cannot understand the difference between “manual” meaning “by hand” or “manual” meaning the skateboard trick. It can’t inject energy into a paragraph with an unexpected word choice. Those are things that only humans can do.

When to localize?

Once you select from one of the above solutions, the issue of workflow remains. Decide how your localization will get done, and you will also need to decide when in the development process your app will be translated. Developers traditionally approached localization in one of two ways:

In Development– Some developers opt to add an extra step to the release process after which no strings (also referred to as “segments”) may be added, edited, or deleted. This is sometimes called a string freeze. This gives translators the necessary time to work on and test translations without fear of changes. Following this point, only minor bugs may be addressed – strings cannot be changed.

After the strings are translated, they are returned to the developers for use in the final release. This process is then repeated for the next release of the software. This process slows down the release of the software in all languages quite a bit.

Post-Release – The second approach is to release the software and add translations afterwards. This means some pages will be not translated at all, or for software with a previous release that has been translated in the past, only partially translated. With this approach, companies are unable to do a simultaneous release in multiple languages.

Introducing: Continuous Localization

Using either of these traditional workflows means localization will be performed in large batches, making it incompatible with today’s agile processes. It delays the availability of the software in languages other than the source language. And every delay is a missed opportunity to create new customers and generate more revenue.

A new solution is available that moves at the speed of today’s development teams, without demanding development stoppage. The idea is that as soon as a new piece of content gets generated for your app, it’s made available for translation. As soon as a new piece of content gets translated for your app, it’s made available to your users.

It looks like this:

Continuous Localization

We call it Continuous Localization, and it is really only possible with the use of a Continuous Localization Platform to house and manage the entire localization process in the cloud. These systems, now emerging on the market, harness the power of the cloud and APIs to enable a nuanced human-driven translation at the speed of continuous deployment.

Categories
Business Community Tips

Test Early, Test Often, Test on Everything?

Bugs Everywhere

Testing any mobile app presents a wide range of challenges. The often repeated but rarely followed software best practice of test early, test often is harder to adhere to than usual due to the fragmentation of the target environment and the relative maturity of tools. The increased acceptance of apps by mainstream consumers and intense competition have raised the bars for user experience and quality. There is more to test than ever, yet often very limited budget for doing so. Fortunately every challenge presents an opportunity and a vast array of tools vendors are racing to fill the gaps.

What to test?

Much of the traditional software testing literature focuses on various forms of functional testing – ensuring the system does what it’s meant to do. With a strong trend towards simpler, single purpose apps, this is often the easiest thing to verify in a mobile app project. There is now a much stronger focus on the user experience and this requires testing of an entirely different nature. The most effective way to test that an app is easy (or even fun) to use is to get feedback from real users. Doing that and finding major issues after the app has been built is a very expensive mistake to make, so most developers and designers will want to create mock-ups or prototypes for early feedback. There’s a wide range of tools to help with this task from simple wireframing through to full interactive prototyping. Given the importance of animations within mobile apps to enable users to discover interface interactions and learn to navigate, more complete prototypes are becoming increasingly desirable. As users become more sophisticated and specialist tools reduce the time and effort required to create interactive prototypes this trend is likely to continue.

With the majority of app store revenues coming through in-app purchases, another more specialized form of testing the design of an app is becoming increasingly important – split testing. On the desktop web, tools for trying out design and copy variants to optimize sites for specific user behaviours are very mature and the best of them can be used by staff with no development skills. In the mobile world most of the tools in this space are still very immature and developer-focussed. The responsive design trend on the web and the more restricted deployment options for native apps make this a more challenging problem for mobile devices but we expect the tools in this sector to mature rapidly.

[sectors slugs=’prototyping-mockup’]

When to test?

The earlier you find problems with software, the cheaper it is to fix them. As such, it makes sense to start testing as early as possible. How about testing the idea for the app via a mobile market research service before you even create your first wireframes? It’s worth considering – if you can’t generate interest in your app idea with a simple pitch it’s not going to be easy to get people to download it from the store either.

For most apps (particularly native apps) it’ll be worth using one of the mock-up or prototyping tools mentioned above and test the design before you start coding the real app. It’s much cheaper to iterate a simple design prototype than a native app. However, you’ll still want to try out the actual app with real users before you launch it. To help with that there’s a range of beta testing services that can help you distribute your beta app and find and/or manage testers. There are also services to help you get feedback from your users before and after the app launches. Providing a highly accessible feedback channel for users in the app is your best hope for preventing the inevitable disgruntled few from leaving bad reviews.

Ideally an app will be developed and tested iteratively with functional testing of new features and full regression tests for the existing functionality run for each iteration. This level of testing can get extremely expensive and time consuming unless it is automated. Fortunately there are several tools, open source frameworks and third party services that can help out there too.

[sectors slugs=’beta-testing,feedback-helpdesk,automated-app-testing’]

Where to test?

Another major problem for mobile developers is the scale and fragmentation of the market they’re trying to serve. Collecting a full library of test devices with major firmware variants is way beyond the budget of most developers, let alone the effort that would be required to test manually on all of them. Automated testing solutions can help here also and some services provide access to a large set of devices for remote testing too. However, it’s simply not feasible for most developers to test every version of their apps on all the device and firmware combinations they support. This limitation means some bugs are almost guaranteed to escape into the wild; the important thing then becomes how quickly you discover and fix them. For this reason, crash analytics and bug tracking tools are becoming increasingly important. Another useful weapon in this battle is your usage analytics data – it can enable you to focus testing on the devices which are most popular amongst your user base and also spot changes in use on particular device models that might signal a non-fatal error that’s causing users to abandon the app.

Finally, for some apps, where they are tested geographically may also be important. Do you know what the performance of your app is like for users who are far from your servers? If you use SMS, do you know how long it takes to get to users on different networks around the world (or if it even gets there). Have the localisations for your app been tested by native speakers? Our automated testing and app certification sectors include companies that can crowdsource beta testers or provide access software testing professionals almost anywhere in the world to help you scale globally without leaving your desk.

[sectors slugs=’crash-analytics-bug-tracking,user-analytics,automated-app-testing,app-certification’]

Categories
Business

Usage Analytics Shootout

Usage Analytics

Usage Analytics tools help developers understand their users and the way they interact with their apps. Measuring app usage in this way and using the data to help target improvements to the app can significantly improve revenues. We’ve already highlighted the duopoly in this tools sector, with Google and Flurry dominating. Our survey showed that 74% of developers made use of Google Analytics while 41% used Flurry. Clearly there’s some overlap here with developers using both and in fact less than 7.5% of developers who use this type of tool don’t use either Google or Flurry at all. However, lots of developers work on apps across multiple platforms for multiple clients and they may not always be able to use their first choice analytics tool. We asked developers to rate their primary analytics tool across a range of criteria. This data tells us which are developers’ first choice tools and how they compare.

Analytics Shootout

 

[box type=”alert”]The infogram service is currently experiencing some technical difficulties. We’ll bring back the interactive chart asap. In the meanwhile, you an find the filtered results mentioned in the article here.[/box]

Looking at all responses for developers primary tools Google and Flurry still dominate the market with Flurry slightly closer to Google and more than twice as popular as all of the other vendors combined. All of the tools show very high levels of developer satisfaction with Google slightly ahead overall. Outside of the top five selection criteria the only areas where other tools show significant advantages over Google or Flurry are custom views of the data and real-time analytics. If you have requirements on those areas it may be worth looking at the competition in more detail but for everyone else we can focus on the shootout between the top two.

Google beats Flurry in a head to head comparison

To try to get a more accurate comparison between Google & Flurry we filtered the data down to those developers who use both tools (and possibly others as well) such that they were in a position to make a direct comparison. This produces some interesting results; first, amongst developers that use both, Flurry is the primary tool for a majority of developers (53.1% vs 39.4%); second, on average, developers that use both tools rate Google higher on every single selection criteria, sometimes significantly so. The ratings gap between the two tools is magnified if we weight the criteria by the relative importance developers assigned in the survey. For the most important criteria, ease of integration, Flurry scores higher than Google when all responses are considered but the result is reversed when looking at only those who can make a direct comparison.

The future?

It seems Google has a slightly better tool but Flurry is still holding onto a majority of the developers that have tried both. The explanation for this slightly conflicting result appears to be that Flurry established itself as a leader in iOS analytics early and there is higher adoption of analytics amongst iOS developers in general. So, while Google’s analytics product may have the edge, it’s not sufficiently superior to justify switching for most existing users. Android ports or web apps may use Google analytics but the iOS app sticks with Flurry. This suggests that unless Flurry can improve their offering we may see their market share decline in future surveys as more developers adopt usage analytics. Given developer’s emphasis on ease of integration, the most likely disruption of the duopoly in this market would be an integrated offering – usage analytics combined with crash analytics and maybe also marketing analytics (install/referral tracking) in a single SDK.