The "Mobile First” revolution is gaining further traction this year. As businesses realize that their mobile audience should become a priority, developers must increase the functionality of their apps to accommodate savvier consumers. You know what your users want, but the real challenge is in delivering the right experiences at the right time. By leveraging location data correctly, you can automate what would otherwise be a tedious process, and generate even more revenue in the process. Do it right, and your ideal app of the future is closer than you think.
Here are 3 lessons for mobile apps looking to design for place:
Lesson #1: Create In-Store Modes to Increase Engagement
When customers are in-store making decisions, they want different content than when they are browsing at home or work. Your users’ experience should change once they enter a store. In this screen, we envision a version of Store Mode for the Home Depot app: if customers have projects to work on, they can create a shopping list oriented with that project, and categorize it so that The Home Depot knows what their users aspire to do.
To make the process more fluid, we would recommend making the most vital In-Store mode features to The Home Depot app experience prominent once a user enters a Home Depot store. The layout of the store users are in appears on-screen, and it automatically pulls from their project shopping list, highlighting where all of the designated items are located in the store. This list is also easily accessible as the first item presented in Store Mode.
To learn more about this use case, visit Designing for Place: Appticipation for The Home Depot App.
Lesson #2: Tailor App Experiences to Users’ Offline Preferences
Taking this mode concept a bit further, you can give your users even more options to filter through what they’re searching for to get to conversion. Knowing your users’ unique location footprint with Personas could help deliver relevant preferences to that user, and help to deliver taste preferences based on other users of the same Persona.
Personas are user profiles that unlock mobile consumer behavior - their demographics, interests, and intents - based on location history. That being said, Personas can change. A user identified as a business traveler may want to take a vacation.
Having the capability to flip between modes in the TripAdvisor app (which we demonstrate in the following screen with the tabbed “business versus vacation” modes) would allow users to easily switch from requiring free Wi-Fi and nearby coffee shops for meetings, to top restaurants recommended by locals.
By having these other prompts, your app can add context to their app to anticipate the next moves of their users, to simultaneously help to make their lives easier and their app more vital.
To learn more about this use case, visit Designing For Place: How TripAdvisor Can Increase App Engagement With Appticipation.
Lesson #3: Deliver Custom Offers Based on Past Location Behavior
Your app knows the content each customer consumes and the customers’ online purchase history. With location history and Personas, Skyhook can complete the customer view by knowing the customers’ demographics and offline shopping behavior and lifestyle, helping you further identify buying trends and tailor offers accordingly.
For example, an Internet Retailer app knows a user has been to Nordstrom recently and suggests similar items on sale: “We noticed you like to shop at Nordstrom, we have some items on sale that might interest you.” Knowing location behavior would allow the app to personalize product recommendations. The app can even create a new feed of sales based on stores users frequent regularly and items they’ve previously purchased.
To learn more about this use case, visit 3 ways internet retailer apps can become vital with Appticipation.
The Bottom Line: With these enhanced capabilities, you can add context to your app and anticipate your users’ next moves, making their lives easier and your app more profitable.
