5 ms·

As a small indie dev (dealing with hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands of customers), the best way I've found to encourage reviews is to prominentl

by epaga 10y ago

As a small indie dev (dealing with hundreds or thousands, not hundreds of thousands of customers), the best way I've found to encourage reviews is to prominently display my email address for any questions or ideas. Then, when customers write (many of them do), I write back a nice response and then add: P.S. If you enjoy Mindscope, would you take a minute to write a short review? It would mean a lot and helps give Mindscope visibility on the App Store.

metafunctor 10y ago
Some people here would probably call that a "dark pattern" (I of course don't). Because, you know, it's soliciting for positive reviews from a preselected set of users.
- leviathan 10y ago
  As far as I've seen, happy user have little incentive to go and leave a good review. But the users who have had some annoyances with the app are definitely going to take it to the reviews. This leaves you with negatively biased reviews a lot of the time.
- bookmarkacc 10y ago
  Not a dark pattern at all. There are no interface tricks
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    Yeah - however, the whole "do you like our app? yes/no" thing, where yes takes you to the store for review and no takes you to a feedback form (that probably doesn't even post)? Definitely a dark pattern.
    - solarexplorer 10y ago
      The advantage of a feedback form is that the developer can come back to you with suggestions, ask you for details to reproduce a bug, etc. If you just go to the App Store and leave a (negative) review, there is no way for the developer to contact you. Hence the dialog/feedback form pattern. Allowing developers to respond to reviews on the App Store will help with this problem.
      - NTripleOne 10y ago
        I'd wager it probably won't help at all. Developers have been able to reply to reviews on the play store since 2013 - yet applications are still rife with this kinda shit, and not just the older ones that haven't been updated since.
      - thecatspaw 10y ago
        but what if I dont want to give any feedback at all? When I am using an app, I only want to use the app, not rate it, and not giving feedback.
- jrockway 10y ago
  Yeah. I wish Apple implemented that star-before-redirection thing and captured the rating. Then if you liked the app, your fake 5 star review would help them without having to actually write a review, AND you'd be getting honest feedback from everyone, not just a filtered subset. I don't know why people write AppStore reviews though. If I like an app, I'll go on my computer and tell people via social networking. Typing out a credible-sounding review on my phone sounds like work, not fun.
  - jayrhynas 10y ago
    That's actually coming with this update too. It looks like this [1] > Using the SKStoreReviewController API, you can ask users to rate or review your app while they're using it, without sending them to the App Store. [1]: https://twitter.com/iCalvin/status/823977790382993409/photo/1 https://twitter.com/iCalvin/status/823977790382993409/photo/...
anotherturn 10y ago
I've done a similar thing, but getting people to review is like pulling teeth. We've tried plenty ways to make this happen: 1. append a footer in the email asking for a review Finding: People ignore it. 2. include custom copy in the emails asking for a review People say yes yes, and then most do nothing. 3. The annoying rate us with stars popup and redirect to appstore. People rate 5 stars inapp, and then close down the AppStore before they apply a rating Getting reviews is hard for b2c - but the real issue at work is the amount of friction AppStore imposes. I've tried to leave reviews and it asks me to re-sign in to the AppStore, minimum character requirements (can't just leave 5 stars).
- jacobush 10y ago
  Don't you have to be logged in to the app store to review? I think many children (and some adults surely can't be arsed to log in, too) are logged out by default.
  - anotherturn 10y ago
    It seems Apple logs me out after a period of time (weeks) no matter how much activity they see - it's quite annoying. I often need to re-authenticate to download a new app (irrespective of cost). I always need to re-authenticate to leave a review.
- vbezhenar 10y ago
  I'm not sure about newer phones, but with iPhone 4S it took so much time to load appstore, that I'm usually giving up. AppStore is very slow application, it feels like bad website on 2G connection and I don't understand that.
  - masukomi 10y ago
    I can't decide if you're trolling people or you don't realize how amazingly atypical your situation is. a) really old phone b) 2G connection. Yes everything is slow for you, and yes, that sucks, but the iPhone world (and phone networks) has largely moved on from that point. Asking for that stuff to be fast is like asking for major web sites to perform well on dialup. even if it _should_ happen, it isn't going to, and that's just the current state of the world. Dev's don't think about the old devices or the slow connections, and their employers don't care.
drawkbox 10y ago
Game reviews are hard because people are playing and are usually annoyed, not as annoying as push notifications but both need to be use sparingly. I find that when we place an ask for review button after there is a reward, bonus or after something fun, they perform better. As an example, after you play a level and possibly have a reward screen on the result, you do a random/progression based bonus per level or some sort of prize chest/box etc. Popping review dialogs or buttons to ask for reviews after giving them something is a good way to make them not so angry it is there, you can't do after they rate as a reward as that is gaming the system but before you can butter up their perception. You can game it a bit, give them something then ask. Timing the ask is key, you don't want to do that randomly as it may be after someone just had a bad level.

by epaga 10y ago

metafunctor 10y ago

Some people here would probably call that a "dark pattern" (I of course don't). Because, you know, it's soliciting for positive reviews from a preselected set of users.

leviathan 10y ago
As far as I've seen, happy user have little incentive to go and leave a good review. But the users who have had some annoyances with the app are definitely going to take it to the reviews. This leaves you with negatively biased reviews a lot of the time.
bookmarkacc 10y ago
Not a dark pattern at all. There are no interface tricks
- NTripleOne 10y ago
  Yeah - however, the whole "do you like our app? yes/no" thing, where yes takes you to the store for review and no takes you to a feedback form (that probably doesn't even post)? Definitely a dark pattern.
  - solarexplorer 10y ago
    The advantage of a feedback form is that the developer can come back to you with suggestions, ask you for details to reproduce a bug, etc. If you just go to the App Store and leave a (negative) review, there is no way for the developer to contact you. Hence the dialog/feedback form pattern. Allowing developers to respond to reviews on the App Store will help with this problem.
    - NTripleOne 10y ago
      I'd wager it probably won't help at all. Developers have been able to reply to reviews on the play store since 2013 - yet applications are still rife with this kinda shit, and not just the older ones that haven't been updated since.
    - thecatspaw 10y ago
      but what if I dont want to give any feedback at all? When I am using an app, I only want to use the app, not rate it, and not giving feedback.
jrockway 10y ago
Yeah. I wish Apple implemented that star-before-redirection thing and captured the rating. Then if you liked the app, your fake 5 star review would help them without having to actually write a review, AND you'd be getting honest feedback from everyone, not just a filtered subset. I don't know why people write AppStore reviews though. If I like an app, I'll go on my computer and tell people via social networking. Typing out a credible-sounding review on my phone sounds like work, not fun.
- jayrhynas 10y ago
  That's actually coming with this update too. It looks like this [1] > Using the SKStoreReviewController API, you can ask users to rate or review your app while they're using it, without sending them to the App Store. [1]: https://twitter.com/iCalvin/status/823977790382993409/photo/1 https://twitter.com/iCalvin/status/823977790382993409/photo/...

anotherturn 10y ago

I've done a similar thing, but getting people to review is like pulling teeth. We've tried plenty ways to make this happen: 1. append a footer in the email asking for a review Finding: People ignore it. 2. include custom copy in the emails asking for a review People say yes yes, and then most do nothing. 3. The annoying rate us with stars popup and redirect to appstore. People rate 5 stars inapp, and then close down the AppStore before they apply a rating Getting reviews is hard for b2c - but the real issue at work is the amount of friction AppStore imposes. I've tried to leave reviews and it asks me to re-sign in to the AppStore, minimum character requirements (can't just leave 5 stars).

jacobush 10y ago
Don't you have to be logged in to the app store to review? I think many children (and some adults surely can't be arsed to log in, too) are logged out by default.
- anotherturn 10y ago
  It seems Apple logs me out after a period of time (weeks) no matter how much activity they see - it's quite annoying. I often need to re-authenticate to download a new app (irrespective of cost). I always need to re-authenticate to leave a review.
vbezhenar 10y ago
I'm not sure about newer phones, but with iPhone 4S it took so much time to load appstore, that I'm usually giving up. AppStore is very slow application, it feels like bad website on 2G connection and I don't understand that.
- masukomi 10y ago
  I can't decide if you're trolling people or you don't realize how amazingly atypical your situation is. a) really old phone b) 2G connection. Yes everything is slow for you, and yes, that sucks, but the iPhone world (and phone networks) has largely moved on from that point. Asking for that stuff to be fast is like asking for major web sites to perform well on dialup. even if it _should_ happen, it isn't going to, and that's just the current state of the world. Dev's don't think about the old devices or the slow connections, and their employers don't care.

drawkbox 10y ago

Game reviews are hard because people are playing and are usually annoyed, not as annoying as push notifications but both need to be use sparingly. I find that when we place an ask for review button after there is a reward, bonus or after something fun, they perform better. As an example, after you play a level and possibly have a reward screen on the result, you do a random/progression based bonus per level or some sort of prize chest/box etc. Popping review dialogs or buttons to ask for reviews after giving them something is a good way to make them not so angry it is there, you can't do after they rate as a reward as that is gaming the system but before you can butter up their perception. You can game it a bit, give them something then ask. Timing the ask is key, you don't want to do that randomly as it may be after someone just had a bad level.