This is, I hope, the last week in which I am playing catch up and no, thats not some really cool way to gamify not being on point. I am glad that I did this catch up though as the most interesting part for me is the gamification of boring stuff or important but otherwise dry stuff.
Types of apps
Having just watched the introductory video on this section, the material is aiming to allow me to get a better understanding of the qualities that an app should have in order to be successful in a saturated market. I think that this will be good for me as I tend to work on things that interest me and not because I have studiously revealed a gap in the market or something grown up like that. I have not looked far outside the gaming space at all and, if I’m honest, I haven’t completed anything you would called ‘research’ in that area either. Is that the product of not knowing the scope of the app development/retailing world? Probably a little. But, I would say that its more a matter of the fact that I really want to make games and have that feeling of seeing people play the things I have made or worked on. Still, I am open to change, I just dont think it will be as interesting for me. I suppose the course is the very activity that will be encouraging me to broaden that view. I need to learn how to conduct market research and I suspect that there is a tasks on its way to give me just that chance…
I could spend some time in the online market places like the App Store and Google Play but I suspect that I would be left square eyed and looking to pull the plug (I don’t mean… That’s a bit over the top! I just meant, stop doing it!). I think that I will wait for a heartbeat and see if there is a task lurking in the course content, ready to jump out and and scare the bejesus (take that Grammerly) out of me.
Market Research
“There are literally millions of apps available…” Yeah, this is a little more crowded that I realised. So, what are the elements that the successful apps share and what ‘dooms an app to fail’. That seems like a good starting point. Getting a little more specific:
- Who is the market?
- How is the market segmented?
- Which market segments are most relevant to your app?
- what are the demographic and technographic characteristics of users in these segments?
- How are the needs of these segments currently being met?
Following trends is important as the market and its demands move and change very quickly. From reading I did on the BA, I remember a couple of points in this area that are worth, er, remembering. The first was not to follow the trends. More specifically, it was that its common to miss the trend and be late to the party. This comes down to how close your finger really is to the pulse of change (ugh, ‘pulse of change’, what am I typing…). If you find out that some type of app is super popular and you decide to develop something in that area, its entirely possible that by the time you manage to release it, not only are you competing with the original, the good ‘me too’s’ and the bad ‘me too’s’, you may have just missed the demand. The other issue I remember reading about and really soaking in was that of identity. I don’t mean the (trigger warning) snowflake debate, I mean that if you, the developer, is constantly trying to turn your half developed app into something that can follow the trends, your will likely find yourself with a mishmash of features that just dont really add up into a consistent and purposeful experience for the user. I do think that there can be something as being ‘too aware’ of what the trends are and having that knowledge driving everything you develop could lead to a very depersonalised and generic product. And besides, who is to say that the trend is good anyway? Is it just some flash in the pan like fidget spinners, or is it ‘disruptive’ like Instagram? Its a tricky one.
What am I going to do about it?
Well, like I said, I think that there is a task waiting in the shadows for me so I will hold off on creating my own just yet.
Getting a handle on things
Al recommends the sensible approach I talked about above, just go to the retail sites and look at how things are doing. He talks about finding out how the apps are segmented, which I thought was a pretty good idea too. Also, the advice on finding the poor examples of apps and learning what not to do is good advice I already know from having some poor roles models in my life. ‘Not going to do it that way’ is almost as valuable as ‘Ah, that’s the way’. I suppose at that point I would be looking for common themes in both types of apps, generating a ‘must have’ and ‘must not have’ list. Al goes on to talk about not forgetting the user! Its a real danger that I think I have experienced when developing Serial Link. I have had a couple of moments where I come to realise that I developing some feature (or over developing it) that has just got my interest. I realise in that moment that I have forgotten that I am not the one that I hope will be paying money to play the thing. This is one of the reasons that I went to Kanban, a tool that I hoped would help me to stay more focused, which I’m pleased to say that it has.
Google Trends looks very useful, I didn’t know that was a service I could use. I will have a look at this soon, just to have a play and familiarise myself with it. Although I could see how this could turn into a procrastinators paradise… Another service mentioned was App Trace and looks very interesting too. This one would be very useful as it combines all the apps sale data from all the major stores and presents it all in one place. The Pew Research Center can be used to identify other qualities relating to app trends (among other things) such as what technologies are being more predominantly used by certain markets and what the attitude is to them. I had not heard this word ‘technographic’ before, but this resource is where I am to find information relating to that topic so that I could take an educated guess at where the app should be targeted and as Al says, how to monetise it.
Competitor Testing
Competitor testing is where a lot of this research is going to end up. I suppose its a personal thing as to how a developer responds to the presence of an app that would be a competitor. He can thing ‘Dammit, I’m not the first’ and go off looking for something truly original. Or, and much more usefully, ‘Ah, this is the sort of thing I was going to do and these guys have done my prototype for me…’. This would be a much more positive outlook and allow the developer to really use the work that has gone before. Theres a saying ‘Get off my shoulder, you too big’. Or is it ‘Giants have massive shoulders’. Something about giants and shoulders.
What segment would my apps fall into? This is where the rest of the content is going to lead me. I am enjoying this weeks content as its not something that I would usually look at but I think that because of that, I could really benefit from it.
Being honest about the quality of your ideas. I think that this is a strength of mine, although if I were suffering from this problem, I would say that… I think that my time working for myself and running my business for ten years has taught me that there can be a huge difference in how you think your customers should respond to something and then the reality of how they do. I think that having those experiences has made me more likely to ask hard questions but also, and I think that this is more important, seek out the thoughts of people who do not care about my feelings. Thats the important part. Throughout Serial Links development I have put it in front of people who dont know me or the team and frankly don’t give a rodents behind that its been a lot of work (like we are the only people in the world who work hard). They told us things that we did not think about, they criticised things we thought worked really well and the loved things we thought were broken. It’s an attitude more than a set of tools and procedures and I really do try to be as demanding as I can as a developer, knowing that the user will spot things that are wrong very quickly and will just move onto something else thats not broken, or at least less broken. The other side to this process of having the software tested in this way is a free brainstorming session, if you are humble enough to listen to what they say. Some of the ideas that people have had for Serial Link have hit the Kanban backlog and I hope will become full on features in the future. Its worth remembering too that this activity fits in with the Agile methodology (not that they would call it that as its too close to a system, which is not Agile… Ba-zing!) of being in touch with all the stakeholders as regularly as possible. There is no stakeholder more important than the end user.
Serious Games
The closest thing that I have done in this area is the Army Game or the Virtual Military Sim, which was the Commercial Game Development project from the last term of the BA Top Up course I completed. It had a serious theme and focused on three areas of Army activity. This first was a virtual interview with a recruiter. The player ‘sat’ in room with the soldier and used a touch controller to aim at a white board, answering multiple choice questions being spoken by out voice actor at the time. The second stage was almost a full strip and rebuild of the standard Army weapon, the SA80, again using the touch controllers. And finally, the player had to command 3 team members and use them to triage the casualties caused by a natural disaster. I learned so much from completing this project and would love to have the chance to work on it further. Although there was talk at the time that might happen, unfortunately nothing has of yet.
I had no idea that the app store took a hard line of some serious games but I suppose I can understand why. There is an amount of curation that a user expects and part of that is going to be not allowing offensive, uncomfortable, immoral content although talking about how those criteria are set and met is a more interesting discussion.
Gamification
Habitica. Its so strange and sort of reassuring that I have used a lot of the material that is coming up in this course! This is another one that I used a couple of years ago when I was trying to find new software the supported the GTD methodology that I had fallen in love with. I still use the methodology but not a thoroughly as I did in the past, although I think that I should change that an engage with it again. I feel so strongly about that in fact that I think I see a SMART goal coming up… Anyway, getting back onto Habitica. I really enjoyed playing around with it and I would be tempted to go back to it and see if the problems I had have been sorted out. First though, what I liked about the app. I really liked the idea that my to do’s, things that I had to get done anyway could translate into something gamey and usable in the virtual world. Because of this, I really enjoyed levelling up the character and buying all the weapons and so on. I think that they idea of eggs and pets that can be transformed into mount was also a really good hook to keep you playing.
I think that the people who are naturally drawn to this sort of thing have a underlying need for completion in the first place, so having lots of things to collect and transform is a great mechanism to satiate that. I could not get anyone else I knew to join in and so I never got to do that quest thing or any of the other content that required other people. I didn’t really mind as I must be honest, I like my own company for the most part and am quite at home with either single player games or coop play but only with people that I already know well and usually from the real world. The downside to using the app was that at the time I lived on my phone way more than I do now and the iPhone app that was around at the time had some pretty serious syncing issues. The items that I was organising and tracking with the app were mostly business related and the thought that something would slip through the crack between my phone and their server was just too much for my brain to bear so I stopped using it. It did put the idea of gamification in my mind though, but thats for another post if I ever feel like sharing that idea (it was pretty good though).
eHealth and mHealth
I know that there is value in this sort of thing, but I have to be honest and say that I find this area pretty dull. I am drawn to games, games with mature content and themes at that. I don’t think that working on something in this area would satisfy that part of me that gets a kick from finally getting that head explosion attack working properly, or the satisfaction of having a soldier character shout ‘man down!’ at just the right moment. How much sugar is their in your diet? If you care, then probably too much. I know I’m being a little flippant but, well, yes, I am. Back to the games!
Casual Creator
Having watched this part of the presentation, my mind is drawn to the time I bought the Oculus and the touch controllers. I was so blown away with VR when I studied it on the BA that after talking with my wife, we agreed to get one. The reason I talk about this here is that my Wife is not a gamer as understand the breed. She is not interested in story, suspension of disbelief, violence and so on. But, she must have played around with that Google Blocks thing for at least an hour. I think that these kinds of experiences are good in that they broaden what is accepted as a game. That can only be a good thing for us players and even better for us as developers. More players means more investment and money and more of that means more development work. Win, win. But, I think that my true motivation is more sinister… Mwahahahaha… I think of these things like gateway drugs to, dare I say, ‘real games’! I think of Google Blocks like the weed to the Skyrim heroin. Now there’s sentence I’m really proud of 😉
Quantified Self
I hate that I love this stuff. I dont know why. Maybe its just that I am part of that generation that saw this stuff come in and have our parents (fathers in particular) saying ‘In my day, you just went to sleep. Now they wanna poke and prod you and tell you how your getting it wrong… ‘. But, I dont really see it like that if I’m honest. I think that knowing more about how your particular body works and responds to things like sleep, food, stress and so on can be very valuable. I do think though that you need to be interested in the long term actions that you can take on that data and its not really good enough to monitor your sleep for instance, see that its not very good and do nothing about it. But, I suppose that seeing the data might be the first step in even knowing that there is a problem somewhere and if the solution is slow coming, at least its on its way. I am a little ‘I want it to happen now’ with a lot of things in life although I feel that I am controlling this better with age.
Using MyFitnessPal: One thing that I am already doing is monitoring my calories and trying to make sure that I ear 3000 a day as I am trying to put on a little weight. I like HST style weight training but as someone who is not naturally big and strong, I struggle with the eating needed to get big and strong! The ironing (take that Grammerly). So, I use the app to set the calorie and macro-nutrient goals for the day and I must admit that its making the whole thing much easier. I have also learned a ton about whats actually in some of the foods that we eat. I can see a day coming where we just have a chip under the skin that collects data and I have to be honest, I love the thought of that. Sign me up!
SMART goal for getting back into GTD, just because I really need it.
S
I will establish a GTD routine including a daily review, weekly review and will define the various Horizons talked about in the book, Getting Things Done. I will use Workflowy which is an excellent bullet-ed list style web application. I will use the @person #trigger and #day to be able to access the right information from any direction.
M
I will know that this is complete when I have all of the could do, should do and want to do items recorded in the system and with a defined ‘next action’ should that be required and am regularly conducting a weekly review of that collected material.
A
This is an appropriate goal as my life is growing in complexity once again and having a healthy grip on all the things for which I am accountable is the cornerstone of productivity in my opinion.
R
It is a realistic goal as GTD is used to solve exactly this kind of problem and is well documented as a thorough self management standard. It is also realistic as I have used it with success in the past and am familiar with the routines and the reasons behind why they must be completed.
T
I expect that this will take about 4 weeks of reminders and habit building to become second nature again. Its worth noting that I am not starting from nothing and have been running a lightweight version of GTD for the last few months, but I know that the strength of the approach is found in the relentless application of the routines that capture tasks and projects and trigger their next action, each at the right moment.
SMART goal for for learning more about Gamification
S
I will conduct research using the internet and find what I think are the most interesting and/or successful ways in which activities have been ‘Gamified’
M
I will know that this is complete when I have found no less than ten examples
A
This is appropriate because I am very interested in gamifying anything that I develop. I am drawn to making games and if I have to do something more grounded then I would like to understand a selection of ways to make the application more game like.
R
This is realistic because I am already making games and have the basic understanding as to what constitutes a game. Its also realistic as there is no small amount of talk about how gamification in already impacting how a diverse range of applications are using gamification techniques to improve engagement and customer retention.
T
I will have this activity complete in two weeks and will present what I find here on the blog.
Chronicles of a Sofa Ninja 