Palm Pre Challenge: Becoming More Consumer-Centric

I once read an amazing article on the Harvard Business Journal about companies that were becoming more customer-focused, rather than product-focused. I still remember the point very well. That is, when people can very quickly jump on Twitter to criticize you and your product for any reason, you need to start focusing on making them happy and not necessarily on making your pockets happy.

At least, that’s what I got from it and it makes sense in the webOS world as well. As of right now there are 2158 apps in the Palm App Catalog and, for the most part, they all do a great job at what they are supposed to be doing.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees and users are daily leaving negative reviews about apps that aren’t up to par with their standards but without offering a solution to those problems. Naturally, the developers sometimes get frustrated and stop developing that app (to put out more standard-less ones) or add in a ton of other features that make the user-interface virtually useless (and less attractive) to potential users.

The problem with this is that the developers that do that are either: 1. Focusing on making a product that ‘just works’ so that they can get some recognition, 2. Focusing on making a product that they like but not listening to what anyone else has to say or 3. Focusing on making a product that they hope makes their users happy rather than researching that market and knowing what makes them happy.

Do you see the trend here, though? Even when developers see the need to make the customer happy they believe the solution is in adding more unique features (since that’s what they think the user wants, or even what the user tells them they want). To all of my developer friends out there:

Stop listening to what your users think they want and do some research to get to know them. Then you can give them what they really need, whether they know it or not. If you do this you’ll cut most of your negative reviews and gain a lot more loyal followers (unless your app really does just suck, then I can’t help you).

How can you be more customer-focused?

To help you make even more amazing apps I’ve made this checklist. Most of these are pretty simple to implement so don’t be shy to use them. Naturally, some of these changes won’t be noticed by your customers – but when you don’t add them, you’ll definitely hear something from the angry crowd who bought the app.

1. Font Sizes: If your app is text heavy you need to have some way for people to change font sizes from within the app. I know we generally think that people who use these devices have great vision but, to be fair, some people do need some help with this. When app developers have added font sizes to their preferences (Hello, Twee!) I’ve seen some awesome positive feedback from the community.

2. Landscape Mode: One of the coolest features of this new generation of intelligent devices is the ability to go into landscape mode so quickly. If possible, build your app so that it can switch to whatever side I’m tilting my phone. When your customers are laying in bed playing with your app they’ll appreciate it.

3. Copy to Clipboard: How many times will I have to click ‘Share via SMS’ and then highlight all of the text and then find the menu option to ‘Copy’ that text before I get really sick of the process? About 5 times. After that, it’s just freakin’ annoying (especially knowing how easy this is to implement). Please add a link to ‘Copy to Clipboard’ in your next version.

4. Basic Editing Functions: The last problem was annoying, but when this one appears it blows me away. If you have text or text fields in your app, give me a menu to copy or paste like 98% of all Pre apps do. What kind of sick, twisted mind do you have making us type everything manually on this dreaded keyboard?

5. Notifications: These are a bit tougher to build in but, when done correctly, notifications can set an app above all of the competition (or at least put it on the same level). If you haven’t built them into your app yet try it out (or, if you can’t, find someone who can). Of course, don’t forget to give me an option to turn them off if I want to, as well. If your app isn’t one that can use notifications, don’t worry about this.

6. Open New Card: I wrote this as a Patch idea last week, but it’s relevant enough (and important enough) to say it again. Do you know how annoying it is to be writing a note and need information from another note found in the same app, and then having to make a dozen swipes to go back and forth between each? No? Then take my word for it, about 67% of all apps could use an ‘Open New Card’ option in the menu to load up another instance of the app. Please consider us power-users when building apps.

7. Touch-Friendly Buttons: Another amazing revelation is that there are still developers who don’t build their apps to be touch-friendly or who hide buttons in awkward places that require a lot of scrolling and touching to find. Check out how TweetMe solves this problem (it overlays a large menu with every option immediately available) and then try to do the same in your app.

Will you do what needs to be done?

When you take the time to do these things, you’ll see a drastic change in how your customers react to your products. Put more focus on them and they’ll put more focus back on you. This isn’t about pleasing everyone (another problem for some developers) but pleasing the people who are most loyal to their favorite developers and brands.

So what do you think? Are you gonna do what it takes to make a great app?

- Sent from my Palm Pre

The Palm Pre Challenge is a series of articles written by Tim Stiffler-Dean. For 30 days he uses a Palm Pre exclusively for all of his computing needs. You can read all of the Palm Pre Challenge articles here.

Follow Tim Stiffler-Dean and his Palm Pre Challenge here on webOSroundup.com or on Twitter: @anotherguy and #PalmPreChallenge. You can also see his personal blog AnotherGuy.us