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UI/UX Design: Beware the Reaper

 3 years ago
source link: https://uxplanet.org/ui-ux-design-the-d-word-f021bfe54df1
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UI/UX Design: Beware the Reaper

How to avoid the one, horrific thing that is every UI/UX designer’s worst nightmare.

Overview

Picture this, you’re checking your stats for an app that your company just released. You think that everything is going fine and the next thing you know, WHAM! Your user engagement is dropping like a lead brick.

What happened? Who’s to blame? In this article, we’re going over the dreaded “d-word” and what you can do to help avoid it during your product life-cycle.

The destroyer of apps

It is a silent reaper that has put more apps in the digital graveyard than almost any other issue whatsoever. The dreaded d-word: drop-off.

User drop-off is the single leading cause of apps being abandoned and forgotten; leaving companies in financial ruin in the process. The worst part is this can happen seemingly overnight and with no obvious explanation.

As a designer, this is the last thing that you want to happen for you and your team after working so hard on your next great project.

So what can you do about it?

Understanding user drop-off

To mitigate drop-off, we first have to understand what it is and how it happens. Crucially, user drop-off is when your users, for one reason or another, begin to leave your app in large numbers.

Identifying user drop-off

This is different from user turnover, which is to be expected. Some months you’ll have higher engagement, some months lower, but it should follow a reasonably predictable trend.

If, however, you are noticing a sharp dip in your engagement/downloads that isn’t coming back up, its a safe bet that something is wrong.

How user drop-off happens

User drop-off can happen for a variety of factors, but there is almost always one common denominator that drives them away:

The app is either not delivering on its promised results for them, or the app is behaving in a way that they don’t like.

I have seen it time and again, and I would say the vast majority of the time its always one or both of those things that is causing your users to flee.

What you can do about it

So what can you do about user drop-off? How can you head this issue off and make sure that your app remains a raving success?

Do the following:

1. Diagnose the problem

We need to figure out what the problem is and where its coming from. The very first thing you want to do is check your support tickets, check your reviews on the associated app stores, and check any comments you’re seeing on support forums.

These will tell you a lot about your users’ pains, and what specifically they are looking for you to fix.

When you find them, catalog them in an excel sheet. After you’ve compiled as many as you can find, check for similarities and do a count. The more you’re hearing about an issue, the more of an issue it is, and the one that shows up the most is almost always the one that’s causing 80% of the problem.

2. Correct the problem

Talk to your management, development, and QA/QC team. Bring them up to speed about what the problem(s) are that you have found, what is the absolute top priority, and what the consequences will be if its not fixed in terms of continuous user drop-off.

Once your team thoroughly understands the severity of the situation, make sure you get a timeline in place so you all know what to expect in terms of delivery date for a solid fix.

3. Follow-up with your users

Once the fix has been pushed out, reach out to your users and let them know that the issue has been resolved. Moreover, wait a ten days to a couple of weeks and reach out again. Check the forums, reviews, engagement.

It the users are saying that the issue is fixed for them and your stats are rising back up, you successfully averted disaster. If not, you missed the real issue and you need to go back and make double sure you know exactly what the problem is so you and your team can get it fixed ASAP.

Users can be patient, but not forever

Know that delaying a fix for even a month can be the difference between saving and losing your user-base, especially for a well-established platform.

Functionality and emotional reward = user relevance. If your app cannot deliver on its promises, or fails to reward the user adequately for using it, your users are going to leave your app like a bad relationship and never look back.

No matter how many flowers and apology notes you send them after that, it just makes you seem desperate, and that just makes it worse.

What this means for you

As a UI/UX designer, part of your job is making sure that your app is staying relevant, usable, and is fulfilling users’ needs. The second that its not doing that, its back to the drawing board, and fast.

Bottom line: the second you see user drop-off, figure out the problem and make sure you get it fixed ASAP!

Nick Lawrence Design
Website | Portfolio


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