In brief
Apps can fail when developers misunderstand needs, rely on friends' opinions, overlook user behaviour, make incorrect core assumptions, adopt an engineer mindset or execute a flawed plan.
App developers fear finishing an app only to find that nobody downloads it. This year, GOOGLE gave a presentation outlining six major reasons why apps fail.
1. Not understanding the problem
86% of apps address problems that the developers themselves have encountered.
Many new apps post ambitious messages online in the hope of attracting visitors' attention. But this only reveals whether there is market interest in the app. Whether the app can actually meet a real need and deserves users' attention is another matter.
2. Asking friends for their opinions
Asking friends and relatives for their views can produce biased feedback because they are not impartial.
3. Not observing user behaviour
Developers often invite users to complete questionnaires to gather their opinions. However, questionnaires cannot directly reflect how users actually behave, and there are many reasons for this.
4. The “most dangerous assumption”
Many assumptions are made before any app is designed. Assumptions about the core of the product can be considered the “most dangerous assumptions”. If they are wrong, they affect the structure of the entire app.
5. The “engineer mindset”
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) means designing an app with only basic features in the shortest possible time, then observing whether it is popular and making changes accordingly. But this is not a good way to create a successful app, because the app is not designed around users' needs from the outset.
6. Executing the wrong plan
Executing a plan is certainly important. But if the plan is flawed—that is, it contains the problems mentioned above—the app's outcome is already predictable.