Tag: mobile apps

Mobile Apps and Habits


Pic: source

If you are trying to create a new habit or trying to use a mobile app more regularly, you would obviously have better luck if you placed the app on the Favourites row. It could be a planner app, an e-book reader, a food-tracking or exercise app, or whatever else.

But it is possible that row is limited and filled with other important apps like the caller app, browser, camera, etc.

So in case you use a page-type layout for apps, the next best option after the Favourites row, is to place that important app in the row just above the Favourites row or in the top row. Because either of these is where your general gaze goes to each time you look at your phone.

If you use a Menu layout with apps (or app folders) on a vertically-scrolled grid, you might be better off placing the important app in the absolute middle row, or the topmost or lowest row.

When you use your phone the next few times, observe which section (top, or lower) of the phone you pay attention to.
Or without checking on your phone, try to think of one or more apps that you think are on the top and bottom (one above Favourites) row on your phone. Placing the important app in that row will remind you to use that app more regularly.

If you aren’t in the habit of rearranging the layout of apps on your phone, key apps that you believe might help you improve on some front, will have a greater tendency to remain downloaded but forgotten or seldom used.

Questions and thoughts welcome.

We’re Ready. So Why Not Be Bold and Aim High?

Two decades ago, it used to take quite a while before global technology and content was even commonly talked about in India. Much longer before it was accessible or affordable to us.

Today, India is home to numerous foreign manufacturing plants that cater to global demand. It is also home to several global R&D facilities. And we as consumers, are at par with the world, quickly becoming aware of, and easily adopting global technology and content. Especially when it comes to smartphones and mobile apps launched universally in multiple languages.

And yet, we Indians don’t seem to aim too high when it comes to our own entrepreneurial dreams. A bulk of us follow tried-and-tested business ideas. We seem glaringly averse to radical innovation; only a few daring to think beyond what everyone else is. From ‘another’ eCommerce site to ‘another’ aggregator, most business ideas are mediocre at best. What’s worse, there is little focus on the actual and incremental value-add, or the differentiation that these businesses are aimed at creating.

Delightful customer experiences too, remain more a mechanical compulsion and less a natural and genuine concern. It is also probably why Amazon has edged past Flipkart. Because Amazon understood customer needs and experiences in a foreign country better than our own folks could. I believe one of the fatal flaws at Flipkart, was that the founders should have been busy understanding how their customers consumed the service. To figure out areas to improve and delight. Instead, they were taking in too much money and too busy investing in other startups before their startup itself had arrived. It’s easy to see through Binny Bansal’s justification philosophy of “because I look at it as giving back.” To draw a parallel from flight safety instructions, ‘you should always fix your own oxygen mask on before helping children, elders, or others needing assistance.’ Let’s just hope it is still not too late for Flipkart to turn around, as Sandeep Singhal of Nexus Venture Partners stated, a few months ago.

Information and technology in themselves keep us at par with the world. So what stops us from dreaming beyond them at what’s next? And what stops us from setting global benchmarks in genuine and consistent customer delight?

We need to start imagining beyond what is obvious. We need to start understanding more than what data and analytics tells us. We need to be more in touch with customer behaviour and needs. We need to innovate.

That is the only way we can ever come a step closer to being the best in the world.

(updated on 17 Jan. 2017)

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