The UX Scorecard for Apps identifies three key areas that you should focus on to optimize your app using best practices. This scorecard is based on two normed scales: the System Usability Scale, which measures how easy it is for users to learn and use your app, and the Technical Acceptance Model, which measures how likely it is that users will adopt your app and continue to use it past the evaluation phase.
A section of the UX Scorecard to rate the Usability of your app.
Analyze your app
Analyze your app according to these straightforward measures and then follow the simple suggestions contained within the rating scales for improvement. This scorecard has helped vendors and partners improve their apps' behavior and subsequent adoption in Atlassian Marketplace. Some of these examples are shown in my Atlas Camp 2018 talk. Note that the Scorecard is not intended to provide an overall grade or rating of your apps. It is intended to help you identify areas of weakness in your app and improve them based on best practices developed over several years of working with vendors and apps.
Discoverability
The first key area to evaluate is Discoverability – Marketing and Onboarding. Introduce your potential users to your app in a straightforward and engaging way. Provide adequate support and documentation. In particular – helping users to find your app and guide them through the first steps to configuring it has shown to significantly increase long term adoption.
Go deeper!
For more in-depth information on onboarding best practices, see Kelly Snow’s blog series.
Usability
The second area to evaluate is Usability. Identify where users struggle to learn and use your app's features. Most of the time providing simple fixes such as using terminology that users expect and understanding their mental model and structuring flows to match it makes a huge difference. In this section it is key to identify the top tasks your app aims to perform. Then have someone who is not a part of the product team (design, development, product, marketing) walk through the tasks while explaining their experience. As we build apps, we get too close to what we've created to be fair evaluators. If you can do design research on your app, that is the best way to identify where you can improve your app's usability.
Desirability
The third and final section of this scorecard focuses on Desirability – whether your app meets your users' expectations and if they're likely to continue using it. It is based on their perceptions of your app – if they think it's easy to learn and use, they're likely to keep using it. If they perceive that an app is difficult and they need lots of support to become successful, they are likely to abandon your app in favor of one that completes the tasks easily. Again – having someone who did the top tasks in the usability section answer these questions is best. You are too likely to think you've hit the mark. Another approach to evaluating users' perceptions of your app is to look at the reviews and judge based on feedback provided there.
Get it today
You can start using the UX Scorecard today, just download it here and start using it.
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Here's to awesome apps and successful vendors and partners!