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