Why is no one using my app?

Companies that innovate based on new, digital applications attach great importance to the functionality and user-friendliness of those apps. And rightly so, of course. But I see they often don’t consider all the aspects that make an application user-friendly while developing a new application. Even though it plays an essential part in user acceptance, the network is considered only late in the process or completely forgotten. This is a mistake, because what’s the point of a shiny new app when long response times force users to abandon it?

Nowadays, innovation is great and absolutely necessary as a company to survive and grow.

Collaboration is a key part to successful innovations. And part of the collaboration process is to understand what and who is required to make the innovation user friendly and easy to adopt.

Companies develop new applications to improve their customers’ experience, to work more closely with their partners, to save costs, or to get ahead of the competition. Their focus is often only on the development of the application or the introduction of a new technology. In my experience, they often don’t invest the time and effort needed to take a holistic view of what needs to be done for a successful introduction.

In the end the most important thing is that the application is adopted, and that adoption will bring about the projected results. If people don’t use the application and instead return to their trusted Excel files and Access databases, all your hard work was in vain.

The network is key to your app’s success

I see companies spending a ton of money on app development, without understanding that there are other elements involved in a successful adoption. Here’s the thing: ease of use is essential to achieving adoption, and that doesn’t just apply to how the features are designed — the app also has to work flawlessly and be highly responsive. In other words, the network is crucial to adoption as it determines how responsive a tool is and is also critical to its functioning.

The network is often only considered very late in the process, however, and sometimes not at all. I’m convinced that taking the network into account from the very start of the project has only a small impact on development costs, but it’s key to make the whole project a success.

What if you realize you need a high-speed and secured network only when the end users complain about latency and cyber security? Fixing that when the app is already up and running takes valuable time. And what’s even worse: you lost the trust of the users. They think the app just isn’t good enough and start looking for something else.

Holistic approach

So my advice is to take a holistic approach from the outset and include the network in your app development process, as this will increase the adoption rate, and as a result, make your business more successful.

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