Note to App Developers: Always test in the wild!
November 24, 2009
We have been working on ShopSavvy for more than a year. Initially released on Android a year ago we finally released our iPhone version last week. Yesterday we went into Best Buy and watched more than 20 people try to scan barcodes with ShopSavvy. We learned a lot! Why didn’t we do this a week earlier? There were some bugs/issues we already knew about (i.e. we found them ourselves), but there were scores of issues that we didn’t understand. First, women want immediate feedback - they want to know the app is doing something. Even my own wife was frustrated by the lack of feedback. Second, have you ever noticed how many barcodes there are on retail packaging today? There are a million. Check out the side of my new HTC Tilt2. There are six barcodes, but there is only one UPC code. The UPC code is the important one - i.e. tied to pricing.
The lesson I learned about building apps is to take them into the wild and watch users. Take videos. And then come back and honestly assess what happened. Each thing you learn is an opportunity to make your app better. We took more than an hour of footage last night and I suspect more than a few of the lessons we learned will make their way into the version 1.1 update. Here is the ‘cut’ version that doesn’t include many of the lessons (i.e. we don’t have to share all of our warts):
