Tag Archives: Magic

What Do Houdini, Copperfield and Angel Know About Tech?

Posted on by

It’s all about the ‘magic‘ in your app.

In talking with a founder recently about their product a thought quickly came out – “there has to be a certain magic to your app, a function that flat out wow’s the person if you want them to use it all the time and tell their friends about it.”

If your app or product does not generate that instant WOW of amazement, a shot of excitement and glitter of astonishment, you’ve pretty much lost  the user at hello.   There are literally millions of apps and websites out there and most of them are pretty much forgettable.  Nothing about them makes you jump up and say “WOW, how did they do that?”.  And that is why most of them suck.  Here’s three ways to WOW:

Be a Magician (Apple)

  • Appear to do something people have not seen before.
  • Focus on presentation and make it look simple and easy.
  • Hide as much as you can from the user, they don’t need to know how you do it.

Create an Addict (Twitter)

  • Like a drug, instant use of your app should illicit the undeniable urge to use again
  • Understand behavioral addiction and how to interweave your app into the consumer psyche.
  • Think how many times a day you slide your phone open to look for new texts or check Twitter to find the latest information?  That’s an Addict.

Pull on Emotions (Facebook)

  • Humans deepest motivations as are driven by emotions.
  • Tie your purpose to an emotional state (Why check Facebook?  Because we don’t want be left out!)
  • Joy, Sadness, Trust, Distrust, Fear, Anger, Surprise, Anticipation… all illicit responses.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Bohman.