Interview: The Importance of Non-Text Elements in Apps
We recently had a great conversation with the folks at Locassa. We’re sharing that chat here for your enjoyment.
Think about your favourite app. Is it informative? More importantly, how is it informative? Is it bogged down with text, or does it offer visuals to help you understand what it does and what it’s about?
Gray Skinner and Levi Nunnink, the CEO and CTO at Droplr, say it’s the non-text elements that really leave an impression when it comes to apps.
Why are non-text elements important to apps?
Non-text elements are just as important to apps as they are in the real world. A picture is worth a thousand words. There is an essential economy of communication that happens when we can “show” users something instead of “telling” them. This has been very apparent as app interactions have evolved over the years. At first, everything was tapping text buttons; now, it’s swipe, pinch, 3D touch, etc. Innovation is only going to continue.
What other elements do you look for in app creation?
Adherence to conventions: One way that an app can rise above the glut of competing apps is to pay close attention to the standards of the platform. For small teams, this means not taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach to app development, but rather taking the time to truly understand how the best apps behave on each platform they’re developing for. Even big teams can fall prey to this approach. One of the reasons I hate Google’s apps is that they don’t feel like something that belongs on an iPhone; and they have unfamiliar conventions and interactions that make using them a frustrating experience.
Attention to competition and leaders: Download tons of apps. See what they’re accomplishing on the platform. See how they’re doing it. You’ll come away inspired.
User rewards: Don’t take them on a five-page feature tour. Don’t ask for their email before they know what your app does. Figure out a way to give them a quick taste of what your app can do for them before you ask for anything in return. The quicker you can give them something, the more likely they will stick around and get to know more about your service.
Know your distribution channel: One of the key factors in a successful app is that you know how to market. For example, if you’re building an app for the iOS App Store, you need to have beautiful, properly-formatted screenshots, good keywords, and a good description. Don’t build a great app that fails because you didn’t take the time to market it correctly.
How has the importance of user friendliness/ease of use increased over time?
This is something we live and breathe. No doubt, there is a competitive advantage to being first to market, but history has proven that the service that puts the user first wins. There’s always the pressure to be all things to all people and to continue adding on feature after feature. This is something we consciously resist. We’d rather be the best at one thing than mediocre at many things.
What is some of the best feedback you have received?
Some of our best feedback has been simply that we build great products. With a great and stable product, the business side of the equation is a lot easier. We pride ourselves on having built a best-in-class product that has become very popular and successful primarily on the strength of its ease of use, utility, and design.
Visit Locassa’s blog for more excellent articles on app development and design.
Droplr Draw comes to Windows & iOS
One of Droplr’s best kept secrets is that our Mac client has a great little annotations tool built right in to screenshots. We use this every day and we know that our Mac users love it. But what about our other two clients Windows and iOS?
We’re really happy to announce that we dug deep, did some Rocky-style pump ups set to 70’s music, and cracked the code. Today Droplr Draw is officially available on Windows and iOS. Rejoice!
Be sure to download the latest version to get the new features.
Droplr adds PayPal
In what may be the most game-changing, industry-disrupting, history-making event ever! you now can upgrade your Droplr account using PayPal. Alert The President.
…Ok, maybe it’s not all that exciting of an update but lots of you have been asking for it so we wanted to let you know.
Just head over to pricing page and look for the PayPal button when you start to upgrade to one of our Pro plans.
TestFlight and Droplr for iOS9
tl;dr: TestFlight corrupted our iOS9 build.
Come, lend your ear to my tale of woe and I’ll tell you why our iOS9 app isn’t out yet: TestFlight is broken. I’m not exaggerating. Literally it corrupted our build.
iOS9 looks like a great release. We went to WWDC earlier this year to make sure that Droplr for iOS would be ready on launch day and we’ve been working on our release ever since.
We had our beta build ready to test one month ago and put together a list of beta testers to send it out to. That was the first time we hit a wall.
This is totally not going to cause buggy apps. pic.twitter.com/Pi80UrPMrV
— Paul Haddad (@tapbot_paul) September 11, 2015
What? For some reason Apple decided not to allow external testing for iOS9 apps. We suddenly went from a healthy double-digit beta tester pool to one in the low single digits. For real? This means that a healthy beta testing process is literally impossible using Apple’s tools. It’s already looking like a rough launch for app developers.
Ok, that meant that we needed to test our new release internally. More man-hours, more tracking down devices, etc. We did that.
Fast-forward to last week, the press event, the Xcode 7 GM seed was released: download, test, archive, submit. No dice. We get another error from TestFlight saying that we can’t submit software built with a beta version of iOS. I check the build version of Xcode that I’m running. It’s definitely GM. I guess it’s sit and wait.
Finally at 5:00 pm on Friday afternoon I get an email from Apple: “Submit your apps today.” The funniest part of this email was the bottom paragraph: “Read the App Review Guidelines and use TestFlight to get feedback before submitting to the App Store”. Are they really expecting me to start beta testing with TestFlight now?! 5:00pm on Friday with a 24-hour window to get my app submitted? Right…
I submit the build. It takes around 8 hours to for TestFlight to process the binary. Now it’s 1:00 AM. I submit the binary for review.
Fast-forward to the end of the weekend and I get the dreaded “New message from App Review” email in my inbox. Cue sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
And this is where things got weird. I’ve been through the Apple rejection runaround for years: usually it’s some violation of a new guideline that we weren’t aware of. This time our app was crashing on startup. Huh? Broken beta testing aside, I know we tested it better than that.
I download the build on TestFlight and launch it. Sure enough, it just sits at the launch screen until Springboard kills it. I check the device logs. It’s not even getting to the main() function! After more digging it looks like the binary is the wrong size! The main function isn’t even there to be called! No wonder it’s not launching. What the heck is going on?
After more frantic research and debugging I find a thread on the Apple developer forums with a crowd of exasperated developers all experiencing the same issue, all being given the runaround by Apple Support. This morning it looks we may have tracked down the source of the problem. If you have an app extension with the same name as your app, TestFlight corrupts your build. Oh. (I assume this is a bug in the new App Thinning technology, which in theory is awesome but today is the worst thing ever.)
I changed the name of our extension and uploaded a new build. Now it’s just sit and wait for TestFlight to process the build (currently around 24 hours) and hope that it doesn’t “thin” our app until it’s dead.
I’m not writing this to vent or as an excuse, I’m writing this as a plea to Apple: We spend tons of money on your devices, your conferences, building software for your stores—can you invest in giving us developer tools that work? Today TestFlight is not just broken, it’s breaking our code. It’s impossible to use as a beta testing platform and now it’s impossible to use even as a way to deliver our code to you. I’ve been writing software for your App Stores for years now and I never thought I’d pine for the good old days before iTunesConnect had TestFlight. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes but if you want good, bug-free products in your store, something has got to change.
Update:
We have a build that made it through TestFlight that launches. It appears that this was definitely related to the app extension name. We’re currently:
Campaign Monitor: Speedy customer support with Droplr
“I can drag anything into the Droplr icon and it’s there. When you’re trying to answer 20 support tickets, speed and flow are what it’s all about.”
Davida Fernandez – Campaign Monitor
The customer service team at email marketing masters Campaign Monitor handle hundreds of support tickets from around the world every day. They help customers with everything from importing mailing lists to customizing HTML templates. Speed, efficiency, and clarity are key. That’s why the team uses Droplr to quickly and easily share screenshots, screencasts, and files.
“We use Droplr to help our customers on a daily basis,” says Davida Fernandez, customer support maven with Campaign Monitor. “We help customers with everything from using our web application to deliverability problems. If their emails aren’t looking right, we’ll help them fix the problem in the HTML code. We do billing and everything in between. Droplr helps us with every type of question we get.”
Campaign Monitor was launched in 2005 and boasts more than 120,000 customers. Since it was founded, the company has grown to 117 staff members in 20 cities across the globe. The customer support team is now 30 strong and operates around the clock. Fernandez works with the North America team, fielding requests from the continent and outlying areas. It’s a big job that requires quick, nimble responses to keep customers happy.
“We often have to share large amount of text with our customers in the form of mail logs,” says Fernandez. “If a customer wants a mail log, I can create a nicely formatted Droplr note and share it in a flash. Customers can view them in any web browser and they look fantastic.”
The Campaign Monitor team has also customized their Droplr download pages with the company logo and URL. To customers, Droplr looks like a Campaign Monitor file sharing service. “We send so many files and links to our customers—having that consistency is extremely important,” says Fernandez.
Fernandez and her colleagues also use Droplr internally to solve more complex customer service issues. “We share screenshots all the time in HipChat,” she says. “Droplr screenshots display right in the HipChat window and because they’re automatically uploaded to the cloud, our desktops don’t get cluttered with them.”
“For me, Droplr is just so seamless. I can drag anything into the Droplr icon and it’s there. When you’re trying to answer 20 tickets in a short amount of time, speed and flow are what it’s all about. And Droplr is just muscle memory for me.”
Learn more about how Droplr can speed up your customer support process.