How to avoid one star for your mobile app

Black Mirror is a hit TV show that explores the unexpected consequences of new technologies.

In a well-known episode called Nosedive, people were able to rate each other on social media. The main character scored 4.2-stars out of 5, where strong social media approval bestowed status and benefits.

Through a series of mishaps, her ratings dipped to less than 1-star. Gradually, her social status nosedived as well, with friends and acquaintances shunning her.

If you think this is nothing like real life, think again….

It sounds radical, but it isn’t too distant from the world we already live in.

If your company launches an app or website which attracts bad ratings, it can be hard to gain any traction.

No matter how many hours you and your team have invested in the app, a few bad reviews put off future users. Peer reviews are enormously influential online, and if potential customers see a slew of one- or two-star ratings, they are unlikely to try it out for themselves.

Your popularity nosedives, and there’s very little you can do to reverse course.

Not only is there an enormous financial impact, this can also do serious reputational damage to your company. And if you are part of the digital team, management will not thank you.

The problem is that all too often, companies invest heavily in design, development, user interface, testing and infrastructure, but still don’t see what their customers see.

Somehow, the true user experience has escaped them (particularly true for mobile).

In order to succeed, you need a clear understanding of how your app will perform across different devices and operating systems.

So what can you do about this?

The solution is a family of products called AppPulse.

Launched two years ago, AppPulse is now a mature and feature-rich product that enables you to see what your customers will see, before they do.

It helps you ensure your app launch will be successful – earning four and five stars, not one! - and monitors it in the future to make certain that you continue to get the app ratings you need, even when your app is updated.

AppPulse is a modern, self-service, SaaS-based APM solution with fast setup and quick time to value. With the AppPulse suite of products, you can swiftly isolate problems that impact the user experience and drill down to the root cause, so they can be quickly fixed.

Some of the most useful features in AppPulse include:

Crash analytics: Get the information you need to prevent crashes and improve stability.

End-to-end transaction tracing: Trace a user’s interactions down to the code-level. Find out how much time was spent in methods, SQL statements, as well as exceptions.

FunDex: FunDex is a mobile user experience benchmark that gives your app a score that includes each negative application occurrence (i.e. crashing, slowness, etc.). With it, you can figure out where to improve performance and ensure you get the rating you deserve.

And the best part is, you can view this without needing to change any code or add tags to your app.

When you add Mobile Center, you also get an end-to-end quality lab with real devices and emulators.

Now when you launch, you already know how the app will perform, so you can get the 5-star rating you need.

The project will be deemed a success - And the digital team will get high praise from management, instead of blame….

To learn more about MicroFocus AppPulse, click on the link in the comment below.

Have you experienced the highs and the lows of launching an app or website? Please share your experiences in the comments below.

Stephen Davis is Director of Calleo Software, a Micro Focus (formally HPE Software) Gold Partner and Partner of the Year for 2018.

We help Heads of Testing in financial services, retail, media and software developers clarify their needs, and find the right testing software for the best price.

Contact him on [email protected] or 020 8236 7010.