Killer App
07 Jun 2010
What is your charity’s killer app – the application/activity that suddenly makes a new device make sense. Many charities have tried, and failed, to make headway on new platforms with google widgets, facebook applications, and iPhone apps. So which ideas are just a reaction to a fad, and which will deliver real value and benefit to your charity, your supporters and service users?
Things to avoid:
- Duplication: Don’t simply duplicate something you already have onto a new platform -it’s got to do something different.
- Hedging: Something that’s peripheral to your real core of activity might be less risky, but if you don’t tackle your main priority, users will wonder why you bothered.
- User Experience: If you do part of the job – “enable donations” but don’t give people a reason to donate, why would that work?
- Old Assumptions: In a few short years, many organisations have established “ways of doing things” online – challenge those assumptions when you reach for a new platform – they might be dead wrong.
- Prototypes becoming products: On a new platform, you can set something up very cheaply and see if it works – but be careful to avoid the trap of your quick and dirty prototype becoming the product, if you don’t want to invest big time to begin with (sensible) then either establish a core of a solid product you can build on, or establish the level at which you’ll bin it and create something that will work for a much bigger scale – with the confidence of the feedback from your trial.
Case Study:
This week Scripture Union released the iPhone and iPad version of WordLive onto the Apple store. The WordLive project has been at the heart of SU’s strategic efforts over recent years fulfilling both its core mission and publishing aims. The whole project has been set up to take SU’s publication and communications online and over the last couple of years that’s meant moving from print publications to the web, (www.wordlive.org), email, RSS and Podcast formats.
Appreciating the importance of mobile internet, a mobile version of the website was made available early on, and users of web enable smart-phones have been able to use the site whilst out and about for a couple of years, though to achieve maximum compatibility across a range of platforms, we have been aware of the compromises in the presentation of the site on those devices.
So why an App? Well it comes back to the very purpose of the material that we’re trying to communicate: The heart of the material – a daily personal bible study – is something that’s very important to our core audience, and makes a special part of their day. We know that moving away from a “sitting with a book” experience has been a challenge for people, and that the portability of the website is questionable, so the App format, centred around the iPhone and particularly the iPad seemed to be an opportunity to move away from the compromises that have been introduce through the nature of the other platforms that we’ve used.
So at its heart the App is another re-imagining of the WordLive material, but one which takes the best of the web experience – a great reading format, clear navigation, and the best of the existing mobile experience – a simplified presentation, and a restriction to today’s material and presents them through a new design specially commissioned for the device. This is a core part of SU’s digital offering so we’ve build a solid app base on which to build in future months. This has increased development time and cost now, but gives us confidence that the app will be able to scale up as it becomes more successful. We’ve made the user experience complete, and put in all the material for the daily activity that we know many people use – that’s meant including audio and video media, and working carefully on how to include external links and interactions.
We’ve also changed one of the core assumptions about the product. Whilst a visitor to a bookshop would pay around £18 for an annual subscription to four quarterly printed books, the website, email, podcast and other online versions have always been free, supported by a relatively low key donation ask. The App version however has been produced as a “paid for” app, to try that different business model for publishing.
A few days after launch, we’ve not even reviewed our initial results, but are waiting with interest to see how our target audience interact with the core message and offering from SU in a very different way from anything that’s been done so far.
So go ahead, get excited and throw it all up in the air: what’s your charity’s killer app?
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