Wednesday 28 November 2012

Bad, outdated UX will be rejected by users

Microsoft gave a valuable lesson to any company relying on old data on user acceptance of old design on Android. Yesterday, they released a new app for their outlook.com on Android. Well, when I say "new app" I mean they changed few strings in the strings files and replaced couple of icons and released the old hotmail app as a outlook.com app.

What makes this interesting is the difference in reception of the app by the users. The hotmail app seems to be generally liked by the users and has a OK 4.2 rating average at the time of writing this.



The new outlook.com app is a whole different story. At the time of writing this it has a very poor 2.0 rating average.



Let's take a look at the two apps. How do they differ?




The apps are identical, what has changed?

As we see from the screenshots, the apps are identical. There is no difference in user experience and no difference in the visuals either (other than the icon). Why are the users rejecting the new app while they like the old one?

The reason is simple. Android has changed. Post 4.0 Android has clear design guidelines and app style, holo. New apps look great and very different from what they used to look on Android 2.3. The old style looks very much out of place on the newer devices. And that is exactly what's going on here. The outlook.com app (as well as the hotmail app) are styled with the old 2.3 style.

This happens if you bring a new app to the market with old styling. Users are more forgiving if your app is old and they've been using it before the Android 4.0 guide and style gained momentum.


Conclusion

The bottom line here is that if you have an existing app on the Google Play and are planning to publish a new app using the old app as reference to define success of your existing design, well don't! Times have changed in the Android world. New apps need to follow the design guidelines to be successful. Don't bring old 2.3 design to new apps. Take the time to figure out how apps should look and go with that. In fact, implementing the new design is often easier than the old. Libraries like the ActionBarSherlock will help you by giving a lot of functionality to you for free.


[UPDATE] Taylor over at Android UX blog did some redesign for the app. This is how it could look like: http://androiduiux.com/2012/11/29/outlook-com-app-redesigned/

25 comments:

  1. There are two other, perhaps more innocent, explanations for the fact that the Outlook branded app has lower ratings. First, it could simply be that quality expectations have changed since the time the Hotmail branded app was rated by users and the time when the Outlook branded about was rated. This could be tested by seeing if recent Hotmail ratings are just as bad as these Outlook ratings. A second explanation is that people who are rating the Outlook app already use the Hotmail app and are pissed off that it's just the same.

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  2. i think is more probable your last option it makes no sense to have two apps that are excatly the same

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  3. I'd probably rate this app poorly because:
    * I expect a new app and find the old one re-branded
    * Outlook.com email looks much nicer in the native Android e-mail client
    * Expect a fresh looking interface like outlook.com

    With that said, I used to use the Hotmail app, I now use the native Android e-mail client, it has worked flawlessly since I converted my account to an Outlook.com account.

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  4. Wow. Great point and great article.

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  5. The conclusion was without any supported argument.

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  6. The sample size of reviews is vastly different.

    I'm sure the hotmail.com app gathered thousands of 5-star reviews when that UX was commonplace, and used the long tail effect to have a average positive review forever.

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    Replies
    1. Hey Jonathan,
      you're absolutely right about the sample size and once could expect the new app to gain a bit more average rating in the long run. The issue I wanted to point out in this post is that design matters nowadays more than it did before. Just a few years ago any apps were welcomed to the Android market and users were thankful that apps were available at all. There often were 5* ratings that mentioned poor UI in the comment but without affecting the overal rating the person decided to give the app. This change is pretty apparent in the early reviews in this new app.

      I'd also would not underestimate the value of first impression. These first reviews will stain the app for a long time and affect position in search results etc. While this probably isn't an issue with this particular app for many other apps that could be a death sentence.

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    2. "The issue I wanted to point out in this post is that design matters nowadays more than it did before."

      But your article doesn't actually support this statement AT ALL. Your article basically says, "the review scores are different, and the design is the same, so it has to be that people don't like this design anymore!" No where did you offer any evidence that the low ratings were because of design. Maybe the designs are the same, but it messed up people's email accounts. Or maybe it just crashes on almost every other phone than yours. Or possibly Hotmail users are just more positive people than Outlook users! Each of these reasons are supported in this article just as heavily, if not more heavily, than the conclusion you reached.

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  7. Are we even sure that these are official Microsoft Apps? Why is the dev name listed as "Microsoft + SEVEN" for both of these crappy apps? The official MS SkyDrive app is listed as "Microsoft Corporation": https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.skydrive&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd

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    Replies
    1. Yep. They're official apps. Microsoft refers to the new app in their own blog:
      http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-outlook/archive/2012/11/27/over-25-million-active-outlook-com-users-and-today-we-re-making-it-even-easier-for-gmail-users-to-switch.aspx

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    2. Interesting, thank you for the info!

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  8. I just LOL’ed at how Microsoft was unable to create a new app. Just wow. Completely ridiculous.

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  9. And here comes the new redesign :P

    http://androiduiux.com/2012/11/29/outlook-com-app-redesigned/

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  10. What about android apps that look like iOS, does people also complain or they don't care if the app is good looking?

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    Replies
    1. Ofcource Yes. I am a owner of android, as i love android. Why shall i use the iPhone theme. Also, from development point of view the android app will provide best performance with android ui guidelines.

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  11. Just looked at the actual reviews https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outlook.Z7

    Most of them are complaining about the rubbish UI. only a few picked up on it being a reskin so I guess that validates the authors conclusions. Would have been nice to see evidence of this research in the post though.

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  12. LOL, microsoft is smoking nervously in the side

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  13. The long-tail of the reviews is a good point, Jonathan.

    Just as importantly, this article seems to be overlooking the different incoming expectations of users from these two _very_ different user bases. Think about the starting point of stereotypical Hotmail/Outlook users.

    Hotmail users: got their e-mail address more than a decade ago, and if they're still using Hotmail, they're behind the tech curve. The native Hotmail web interface is painfully bad for anybody who's used a top 4 competitor. Anything is an upgrade from that.

    Outlook users: use Outlook at work to manage a higher mail volume, manage contacts, schedule meetings and resources, and retain critical information for later use. They are much closer to power users. Making a mobile app for these users would not be trivial.

    If you release the _same_ app/functionality to these very different user bases, you should be amazed if their reactions were anywhere near similar.

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    Replies
    1. I think that maybe you don't know that hotmail has been renamed to outlook.com and it has nothing to do with the enterprise outlook/exchange mail system.

      The outlook.com app looks the same as hotmail because it was hotmail, the web version was redesigned when they changed its name but seems that the android app has not.

      Try to browse to hotmail.com and you will see what I mean.

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  14. I agree that the author apparently jumped to his conclusion without really backing it up with anything else except his gut feeling. Doesn't means he's wrong.

    A quick glance at few pages of comments for both apps reveals that recent ratings for hotmail app are as negative as for outlook app. The difference is in the contents of the comments.

    For hotmail app, most negative comments are about functionality. For outlook app, there's lots of users complaining that the app is ugly, poorly designed, or that it's exactly the same as hotmail app.

    Id's say the lesson learned here is as follows: If you're just planning to change the branding, release an update to the existing app, instead of releasing it's rebranded clone. At least your rating will be protected by the 'fat tail' as someone here mentioned.

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  15. redesign consept hotmail application for android
    https://plus.google.com/109071021470581225264/posts/a6yAzrRq69s

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  16. I think not following the new pattern is fine, just not the old pattern. That's when it looks outdated. Custom skinned alert boxes are not familiar but sometimes look really good and gives a different, and maybe better, experience.

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  17. Microsoft not being exactly your regular Android indie developer depending on a successful app to make a living, they probably could care less if their app is super badly rated.
    And if I was MS, just to piss off people, I would abandon the app like it is with no replacement, leaving people bitching and bitching until the end of times.

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