Why some web apps are successful and others aren’t

Reading time: About 2 minutes

Useful (not for technology sake)

Good: “OMG this will help so much”

If you hear this from an actual user (as opposed to a salesman), you’re on your way to a marketable product.

Bad: “That’s cool!”

If your users recognize the glitter first, you’re either creating an unsustainable product or positioning your product incorrectly. Glitter is something nice to look at, but glitter collects dust in an art gallery if it isn’t also useful.

Specific

Good: “You should try _____ (your product), it does ______ (task you help solve)”

A specific unique selling proposition makes your product easier to sell by the only people users are listening to—each other.

Bad: “_____ (your product) does a ton of stuff!”

When people share your product with others, you want them to plant your product in others’ minds in the context of a specific reason to use your product and not in the “does a ton of stuff” junk pile in our brains.

Helps user accomplish something

Good: “I wish it was easier for me to do ________ (task you help solve)”

Necessity is the mother of invention, and we need tools to help us accomplish tasks. What task do you help solve?

Bad: “It’s already easy for me to do _______ (task you help solve)”

It’s a saturated market, find another problem to solve.

Easy-to-use

Good: “It didn’t take any time for me to learn _______ (your product)”

You can’t make a complex task any easier with a complex product. If a = completing the task, b = using your website, and c = stress to complete the task with your website, it should work out that a + b < c.

Bad: “How do you use ________ (your product)?” + deer in the headlights look

= Time for usability testing

Easy to prove it improves something (measureable)

Good: “Wow, look at how much it improves ________ (task you help solve)”

The benefit should be obvious and easy to communicate, such as “You’ll save $x, this saves x amount of time, or you’ll gain x opportunity (which has obvious benefits unto itself)” Evaluation time is super short on the web.

Bad: “People will see the value when they use it”

You’re putting the carriage before the horse. People will use your product only after they see the value in using it. Thus, the value should be obvious.

7 comments skip to comment form

  1. Danny Halarewich said— 3 weeks later

    In summary, some products are useful while others are riding on current trends.

    Glitter only products should have been experiments done by the authors instead. If everyone was realistic about how useful their product is, they could still build neat things, learn from it, and figure out how they can adapt it for a real need in the marketplace.

    Nice article

    #1

  2. Ryan Kelly said— 2 months later

    This is not only a great post, but very timely for us. I absolutely agree with everything you’ve said here, and would add that it is not easy whatsoever to accomplish.

    Our Website Analyzer tool, http://analyzers.pearanalytics.com, was useful and very easy to understand. As we build a premium version of this, we are trying to decide how each feature accomplishes something of value, and is automated as possible.

    I think there are some tools out there that require so much input, that users get bored with it after some time.

    #2

  3. Brian Cray said— 2 months later

    Thanks for the comments! Both of you have great products! Checked out Pear Analytics today… a lot like website.grader.com… but fresher! Shared via Twitter :)

    #3

  4. Ryan Kelly said— 2 months later

    Danny, you guys have a great product site design too. Funny, my designer showed me your site a couple weeks ago as he was researching product sites for ideas as we revamp ours. Great job!

    #4

  5. Danny Halarewich said— 2 months later

    Thanks Ryan!

    It’s been a real fun project to do. We like the way it turned out, but it was difficult getting to that point. I’m my own worst client, that’s for sure :)

    #5

  6. Ryan Kelly said— 2 months later

    I hear ya Danny! I’m consistently letting perfect get in the way of good ;)

    #6

  7. Allan Ebdrup said— 3 months later

    I recently had a sleepless night. I’ve made a tool for creating surveys online (http://obsurvey.com), and the going was tough. There are so many other soultions. But after thinking hard about what my solution is really good at and the others are not I had an idea, I had to get up in the middle of the night and register surveyonblog.com, the next few months I will be focusing on launching surveyOnBlog.com as a survey solution specially made for bloggers.
    Suddenly my priorities have changed and the impossible task of getting a foothold doesn’t seem so impossible any more. I think I’ve found a niche. It will be so much easier to explain what makes my solution unique, and what it helps with.

    #7

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