Well first question you should be asking yourself is what is the use of using my app for? 1
What is the core functionality of my app? 2
What is it that I have to get right in order for my app to be used? 3
So show you what happens when a company doesn't think about this question or doesn't know the answer 4
to this question. 5
So there was a app called SitOrSquat that came out of the Bay Area a few years ago and it had a very 6
simple concept. 7
It was an app to help you find the nearest bathroom and it mapped out a whole bunch of bathrooms across 8
the city and allows you to geolocate which is the nearest one. 9
Now that was all very well and good until it was bought by Charmin the toilet paper brand. 10
And after some corporate adjustments this is the result. 11
And I think you'll see that the user experience is less than optimal. 12
So I want you to imagine that you're in the situation where you are desperate for the bathroom. 13
You really need to pee. 14
Now with this mindset you download the app called SitOrSquat promising you to find your closest toilet 15
and the first screen that you see after the download is a terms and conditions or a EULA and use a license 16
agreement screen. 17
And remember this is not something that's enforced. 18
You don't have to show this in the first instance to the user. Both AppStore say that by downloading the 19
app the user is implicitly agreeing to the end user license agreement and as long as you have this available 20
in some menu somewhere within your app then it is all good and legal. But Sitorsquat decided that 21
this is the first green that you should have to read and accept. 22
Next they ask you for your birthday and they ask it in a really condescending way by saying "We need 23
to confirm that you have been potty trained" 24
Right. 25
So I'm desperate for the loo and I am going to use this really really awkward user interface and find 26
my year of birth. 27
You know, imagine if you're 40 years old and you have to click this button almost 30 times. A, the 28
data is going to be pretty much invalid because nobody is going to bother to give an accurate entry. 29
The next thing is that you're going to annoy the hell out of any users you have 30
left at this stage. 31
OK. 32
So next you say "set" which is inherently confusing and it doesn't make any sense what's set what. 33
And afterwards you could get a pop up that says "Unfortunately you did not meet our requirements to use 34
SitOrSquat." 35
What exactly are the requirements to finding a toilet? 36
Because I'm seven years old and I'm not allowed to find the toilet? 37
I mean it's not like I'm looking for the nearest pub. So this is stride what two or three by now. And 38
then there's another five screens that you have to go through before they will find you the nearest 39
bathroom. 40
So if at this stage you haven't peed yourself yet, you will probably from hysterical laughter at the 41
fact that this company thought that people would want to login with Facebook and share and review bathrooms 42
all across the world. 43
Yeah I don't think so. 44
So this is a really really bad example. 45
This is what we call an anti-pattern in user experience design. 46
Do not make your apps like this. 47
This is classically a company or a team who haven't thought about this question. 48
What is the main thing that my users want to achieve with my app? If that main task is just finding a 49
bathroom 50
then you should make the process of completing that action as friction free as in as few steps as possible. 51
And then afterwards you can think about you know asking them incrementally for more things. 52
But the first thing to think about is knowing what is the core functionality of your app and trying 53
to minimize the number of steps that it takes to achieve it within your app. 54
Now this is a good example of how you should do it and this is the app for YPlan which is a event planning 55
app essentially. 56
So it's basically an app for people who are bad at planning but you want to do cool things. So you head 57
into the app and the first screen that you see is "GO TODAY" "GO TOMORROW" "THIS WEEKEND". 58
And that pretty much covers the end goal of 90 percent of your users. 59
So you tap on go today and you can already start seeing events 60
and within two taps you could be done and you could have booked your event using this app. 61
So when you're mapping out a user's journey through your app which you're going to learn about in a 62
later module in the hands on design process lessons, essentially we're thinking about what is the user's 63
journey through the app and how can you minimize the steps that it takes for them to achieve the main 64
goal. 65
Now if you do one thing really well, then everything else is just an added bonus. 66
So this is the right way to go and think about this question whenever you're making your app.