It is predicted that by 2015, there will be one mobile phone for every person on earth. This is already a staggering figure, considering facts that the world population is in excess of 6 billion people. With so many mobile phones already, the number of apps is also exceedingly high. According to recent statistics, Android users were able to choose between 1.3 million apps, while Apple’s App Store remained the second largest-app store with 1.2 million apps.
Some App Downloading Statistics
With so many apps already existing, it is obvious that a humongous proportion of people will already be downloading these apps. Typically, these statistics are noticed for this segment:
- It has already been estimated that 50% of Americans in the USA download apps
- Typically, the time spent on each app is just around 30-45 seconds which indicates the rather short attention catching ability and ‘app engagement’ of many apps that go on to the apps store
Thus, many individuals also go ahead and uninstall the apps from their mobile phones. This is not the only reason why people delete the apps from their devices, sometimes only seconds after installing it. Many reasons exist, but first, let us examine some more statistics that will shed more light on this phenomenon. When one goes ahead and examines the apps that are already installed on the users’ phones, it does not come as a surprise that:
- Many users have more than 40 apps downloaded on their mobile phones
- Especially in the USA, the number of apps installed on mobile phones is 41
Another interesting facet is that the user interest in the apps drops with the increased user engagement.
- On day 1 of the install, only 20% of the users who downloaded the app will use it only once
- Day 30 sees that 54% of the app users are still engaged
- The users interested in the mobile app drops to 43% on day 60
- On day 90, the engagement drops to a further 35%
Hence, the user engagement drops as time moves forward.
Why Users Uninstall Apps
Hence, it is painful and some developers even hate to admit it, but in order to see your app uninstalled time after time is also very frustrating and painful:
- Many apps developers fail to understand that an app is one type of product.
- People expect apps to evoke some emotional response while interacting with it.
The top reason why people deleted apps after installing was because of crashes or installation errors. This figure amounted to around 62%.
- Nearly 59% of the individuals do not appreciate a slow launch
- Expect the app to open within 2 seconds
- 37% of the respondents said that was that the app wasn’t what they expected
- While 42% said they did not like the user interface
Hence, instead of blaming yourself why your work of art does not click with people’s minds, it is worth understanding why such things happen. There is no reason to hang your head in shame or drop half dead in melancholy just because you didn’t click with the people who have interacted with your app. On the contrary, you need to understand that:
- It was just a product with a bad design or a bad cover did not do well in the market and was finally abandoned by the users
- Your app could have been rejected because it was too cumbersome, or many petty reasons.
A few Reasons…
It is dangerous to fall in love with a false sense of superiority caused by designing a ‘superior sounding’ mobile app, but which actually irritates the user no end. A few typical reasons that sound petty, but could cause a major headache to the user:
- Network overload or over usage of CPU power – This could cause the battery to drain too fast
- The app could cause overuse of storage space on the mobile phone
- Your app could crash too many times
- Make the user feel that the app is causing the phone to slow down
- Takes too long to load
- Provides an overall insipid experience
What about User Experience
When it comes to user experience, it forms the basis for a prolonged interaction with the user of your app. Therefore many developers misunderstand this philosophy and build an app that they think users will spend more time on, rather than judging things from a user perspective and build an app that makes the user experience more productive rather than time consuming.
Is it not what the users expect?
An app that can do many things might look alright from the developers perspective, but could be hated for being over productive or not seeming to do what the user expected. While understanding why apps fail from the user experience perspective, the following reasons could apply:
- A poor first experience
- Fact that the app puts out too many notifications
- There is no offline mode
- Poor or unprofessional visual design
- Seemingly bad looking icon for the mobile app
- Users might be looking for a better experience customization, such as muting sounds, and turning off notifications etc.
- App could display too many ads
- Need the user to update the app too often
Does your App ask for too much information?
You also need to understand that:
- Every extra item on the permission list could potentially scare the user or irritate him or her no end
- You need to be careful with permission requests
- Do not ask for more information than is needed to run your app smoothly on the user’s mobile device
- Does the app require social network access?
- Invites friends without the user’s permission
- Has it been too long since the last update
Then the users could feel that the app has been abandoned by the developer and uninstall it.
Conclusion
Finally, there are also many miscellaneous reasons why users go ahead and uninstall your app. These could relate to:
- Non standard user experience
- Amateurish look and feel of the app
- Inability to move to the SD card
- You receive feedback about issues with your app, but choose to do nothing, then this behavior could be the proverbial last nail for your app
Hence, while freezing, crashing, slow responsiveness, battery usage, and too many ads consist of some of the main reasons why users uninstall apps, the foregoing studies also reveal why users tend to uninstall apps in favor of other apps.
Images: Author’s Own
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