The Most Prominent Reasons Apps Fail & How To Avoid Them

Look back at any of your past failures. You’ll find some or the other reasons.

Maybe you didn’t prepare well for the exam.

Maybe you added too much sugar to your cake batter.

Maybe you played the wrong shot.

Similarly, apps fail for a reason. If you take the list of top 100 failed apps and dissect them, you’ll begin to see a pattern.

The points that make up this pattern are what you as an app developer or a business owner should steer clear of while developing an app.

This article will discuss the most prominent reasons why apps fail and how you can give yourself a winning chance by making sure you don’t make those mistakes.

No research

User perceptions change over time due to a variety of reasons. Conducting usability testing or surveys is the best way to identify and understand your audience. If users don’t find your app useful, they won’t care to use it. Without sufficient research, you will end up creating an app that nobody wants to use; and it will fail.

Study mobile user research data and find out how users are behaving in the mobile environment, which metrics affect engagement rates, retention rates, and so on. With this information in hand, you can create apps that solve real-world problems, thus ensuring success.

Not adding value

As mentioned above, your app should solve real-world problems for it to succeed. When trying to figure out if you are solving a big enough problem, make sure your solution adds more value than what people are already experiencing from other apps. This is because people won’t even download an app if there is no added advantage to it.

Poor user interface

The UI should be smooth as butter; so intuitive that users don’t feel any kind of frustration. They will look for a better app at the slightest sight of discomfort. Users should easily be able to download the app and use it for whatever purpose they downloaded it for. Keep things simple and with as few steps as possible.

For example, WhatsApp has a simple and intuitive interface that’s easy to use. The purpose of the app is made clear as soon as the app is opened. The messaging feature is not hidden behind tabs. In fact, even the additional “Payment” feature is placed behind individual chat windows.

Not choosing the right launching platform

iOS or Android? Nail down on which platform perfectly fits your customers and your app’s core value proposition. Each operating system comes with its own sets of advantages and disadvantages. For example, iOS users spend more on apps while Android is accessible to a wide range of audiences and phones. If you end up choosing the wrong platform for your app, the chances of it failing are exponentially high.

Not testing enough

Customers are getting less and less forgiving. Even if you make a small mistake, your app is likely to be punished in the form of uninstalls or reduced usage. This is why apps should be rigorously tested before they are made public. Sadly, out of all the apps that are released, only a handful are without any bugs. Even if there are no errors upon release, do not shy away from making improvements through updates based on user feedback.

If you do not spend time testing your app manually or use testing tools, you will miss any hidden bugs. At each stage of the app’s development, make sure there is enough testing. One good practice is to use people within your business who had nothing to do with the app’s development. They will give you unbiased feedback.

Not performing app store optimization correctly

App store optimization is something that most developers and businesses take lightly. The job does not end right after the app is uploaded into app stores. Where your app sits among thousands of other apps will depend on the metadata that you feed into the app’s title and description. However, do not consider this a one-time task. The keywords you need to use will change over time. Do keyword research from time to time and update the content with the new keywords.

Inefficient Marketing

You may have created an amazing app, But what’s the point if no one knows about it? Many businesses adopt the horrible ‘build now, market later” philosophy and find out that it often leads to failure. The best approach is to make a solid marketing plan for your app even before building it. You should know who your target audience is and figure out the best communication strategy to use with them.

There are a lot of affordable marketing tools out there that can help you plan and execute your marketing plan to a great extent. The only thing that could stop you is a lack of planning. Start promoting your app early on, as it can save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.

No regular updates

The best apps are those that regularly roll out better features and improvements based on user feedback and research. The ones that fail to do so are the ones that, well, fail! Look at the apps that you use on a daily basis, like Instagram or Facebook. They release updates at least once a month. Regular updates not only help improve user experience but also help bring an app to the top of the app store search results. Such apps are also perceived to be more trustworthy by users.

Conclusion

As we discussed at the beginning of this article, there is always a reason or many reasons why an app fails. Now you are aware of the most prominent reasons and what you should do to avoid them. Keep them in mind when you are developing apps.

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