The Cringe. And why your team needs to experience it. 😬
By: Sarah Smith
Tags: App Development, Startup, Startup Lessons

It was 2014.

People filed into the dark, edgy startup space. In ones, and twos they entered, and looked around, as we developers nervously looked on.

Soon there was a crowd of several dozen, young and old, tech savvy and not; but all universally there to torture test our apps & games with the most challenging kind of usability test I have ever experienced.

Young woman tries out a popular game at the Seattle Museum of Culture. Commentary from a game developer plays on a screen behind. Professionally built mobile games and apps are exhaustively tested for usability so players can pick them up in seconds. Photo © 2016 Sarah Smith

I call it “The Cringe” and its the feeling you get when you see someone pick up a phone with your app running on it… and then set it aside because you didn’t absolutely nail that first few seconds of user experience.

They look at it, try it for a second and then… just set it aside.

And your heart sinks into your shoes.

And that is mobile. That is freemium or free-to-play; because you have mere seconds to get folks interested in trying the next interaction.

You can’t say a thing. You can’t coach them, explain anything. You are way too close to the project to even be near. You’ve already arranged for helpers to look on with clipboards and take notes.

OK, that was just one person. Maybe it wasn’t for them.

Now a group comes along — one picks it up… they’re showing that app to their friend! Great!

No, wait — they can’t work out how to use it… the friend can’t work it out either.

Aarrggh. You want to cross the room and grab them.

Its so simple, look I’ll show you!

But: you’ve already lost them.

And that is mobile. That is freemium or free-to-play; because you have mere seconds to get folks interested in trying the next interaction. If you make them think, make them feel like they’re dumb for not knowing; they’ll exit and you’ve lost them.

I was about to ship my second app into the App Stores. Nine months of toil, hopes and coding. Marketing and development consuming all my waking hours.

We all know usability is important. But making it just a half-hearted dot-point on your delivery schedule will probably mean it doesn’t get done authentically. Image credit: David Travis

After two years of working on my app business I thought I had done what I needed. But one thing I had been avoiding was contact with the enemy — err, I mean users.

There was one thing I desperately needed to do for my app before shipping, that I had been unconsciously putting off.

And it’s something I bet you and your team — if you’re building apps or products — are likely putting off too.

Ruthless, no-holds-barred, real-world user testing.

Its when you’ll find out that that carefully crafted tutorial sequence that you spent ages on just gets fretfully dismissed by every single user who picks up the app.

Only to arrive at the first interactive screen and look up in frustration because they don’t know what to do.

(They just dismissed the introductory animation designed to explain this.)

Actually running real live usability tests: unvarnished and raw, with unschooled, members of the public is something that developers hate. And fear with a passion. But it’s also the most motivational experience you can ever have as an app entrepreneur.

Its desperately necessary even though it’s so personally challenging.

I was working from River City Labs — a vibrant co-working space setup by Steve Baxter of Shark Tank fame; and run by Peta Ellis. Because of its constant hum of startup activity there was no shortage of folks coming and going.

One of the Meetup groups at RCL in 2014 was “Cocoaheads” a group for professional app developers. Image © 2014 Sarah Smith.

Meetups and pitch nights happened there constantly, as well as community coding events and hackathons. The place was buzzing with people.

But getting them to stick around and really give our apps a try out took a bit of persuading.

To up the ante, the RCL folks, in conjunction with Right Pedal Studios put on a demo day; and anyone who was working on something could exhibit.

Pizza and refreshments were supplied and the RCL folks put their PR muscle behind promoting the event. With lots of developers involved there were way more folks engaged to spread the word.

Some of the games and apps on show that day had been developed by teams of professionals that had been working in the field for years. Others were very raw and unexperienced in just about every aspect of the business.

To me, despite the pain of that day; nothing is more valuable than the uncurated exposure of your app to folks who’ve walked in off the street.