Mobile – PolyMth – Product Leadership

The Wrong Login Can Kill An App

Bushel.ag is a mobile app designed to help elevators serve their farmers. Earlier competitors had farmers log in every time they wanted to use the app. All the competitors failed.

Bushel’s secret sauce, login once with a phone number, keep the user logged in for one year. I’m sure they are using some sort of long lived token or device ID in the background.

They are able to demonstrate value from the app in under 2 minutes and they keep it valuable so the farmer wants to keep coming back.

–Jake Joraanstad the CEO of Bushel.ag

At the Sioux Falls Innovation Expo

Eliminating My Wallet

I have been trying to minimize and eventually eliminate my wallet and keys for a couple of years. I recently tried to scan all my membership cards into a mobile app. It made my wallet very thin, but there was a problem. Retail locations can not scan my phone and cashiers have to manual type my number every time, which completely negates any convenience from eliminating my wallet.

As a millennial trying to eliminate my wallet, I want POS systems to be able to scan my digitized membership cards, so the front line staff doesn’t have to manually enter my number.

-Verify the number is correct in the POS system
-Verify that the process can be completed in less than 2 seconds

Open Source Icons

Check out Font Awesome for almost any icon (in font form) you can think up.

Taco Bell App Flow

Enter Payment Info

taco-bell-app-flow_1_credit-card

2) Checkout

taco-bell-app-flow_2_review-order

3) “What happens when I tap submit?” Overlay

taco-bell-app-flow_3_submit-overlay

4) Order Confirmation/Pickup Method (High Friction Step)

taco-bell-app-flow_4_pick-up-method

5) Email Receipt

taco-bell-app-flow_6_email-confirmation

Mobile Technical Debt

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Mobile Form Design

Most mobile forms are aweful. As a mobile user, I want to take a picture of my driver’s license, so that I don’t have to type in my address and scroll to find my state.

I was really impressed with a healthcare startup called Oscar, their form was actually fun (use the zip code 10013 just to try their form).

Walmart Bollards and Mobile Application Pacing

Bollard is a fancy word for cement posts that stop cars from going where only people should go. Now that you know the word, you will start to see them everwhere. Walmart’s objective is to get your to browse for the longest period of time possible, so you can see more things to buy. One way they do that is to prepare you to start shopping early. The floors in the entry way are rough and the bollards are bigger than they need to be (just lift up the plastic cap and look at the tiny cement core), all to slow you down and get you in the shopping mindset.

This is analogous to certain mobile design problems. Get the user to slow down to weigh the pros and cons of a certain choice. Get the user to slow down so the learn about the product and will be more likely to complete the activation process. Get the user to slow down so they can understand why your product might now be right for them.

Turbotax has a highly refined sense of pacing, the speed increases and slows down through the process of completing your tax return. The flow drives emotional weight at the points they are adding value (we are analyzing your return for risk) or where they are trying to sell and an add on service: