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I didn't realise it makes such a difference. I'm going to implement it in our apps. Do you have any suggestions on when to show it? I would imagine it makes sen

I didn't realise it makes such a difference. I'm going to implement it in our apps. Do you have any suggestions on when to show it? I would imagine it makes sense to show it only after some reasonable time. Let's say if user opened the app 5 times or something like that.

hobofan 8y ago
Some of the best practices regarding it that I've heard (and found to work very well in the projects I used them): - You show the user a internal 5 star rating UI. If they rate anything below 5 you don't forward them to the App store for adding a review. Works well with 3 buttons: "Rate", "Late", "Don't show again" - Best time to show it to the user for the first time is when they completed the first "major action" in the app. For e.g. a shopping app that would be completing their first order, or for Airbnb booking your first room - After that you show it to the user every ~5th time they open the app until they rated it or click "Don't show again"
- lwansbrough 8y ago
  Good advice for Android. For iOS, Apple actually decides when to show the user the UI. That being said, you should probably only attempt to prompt when you believe the user has had a good experience.
  - nfoz 8y ago
    Does anyone else consider this to be dishonest? Sounds like Apple should take even more control.
    - hobofan 8y ago
      > Sounds like Apple should take even more control. How? In the end both Apple and Google still need to have some influx of rating to their App stores for them to function. Further reducing the ability for app creators to funnel reviewers to the App store would probably put them below that threshold.
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        The app store itself should prompt for the reviews, on a reasonable schedule after purchase/download. Maybe 3 days after purchase for a thumbs-up, thumbs-down initial impression. Two weeks after purchase for an N/5 star review. Two months after purchase for a star rating update and descriptive text review for other potential customers. Six months after purchase, and yearly thereafter, for a star rating update and descriptive feedback aimed at the vendor, such as pain points and enhancement requests. Each time, allow the user to opt-out of review request nagging. This would also allow a chart of user satisfaction over time, filtering reviews by length of ownership, and trends in user satisfaction, especially in response to version updates. I am far more likely to trust a reviewer that has gone from a three-star rating to a five-star rating, over four years of owning the app, and has reviewed other apps from different vendors, than someone who gives it five-stars after a week, has never reviewed anything else, and then vanishes forever. One would think that the company that developed PageRank could do something similar for review rankings, to weed out review-bots, astroturfers, and straw-purchasers.
- endless1234 8y ago
  Extremely common pattern on Android, but it's so transparent in its dishonesty it really annoys me. But I guess it works for the masses anyway..
  - hobofan 8y ago
    I agree. Learning about that basically made the ratings in the Play store worthless in my eyes, as it only represents how well you play the game. 1-4.0 stars means that you probably haven't added that feature to your app. The various degrees of 4.1-5.0 then only mean that you have optimized the process even more by better selecting for 5 star reviewers.
  - IneffablePigeon 8y ago
    Agreed, when an app I don't love does this I now go out of my way to always click the "I love the app" button and then give a negative (honest) review. OTOH if I developed an app I'd probably do the same thing :/
    - zrobotics 8y ago
      Yep, I absolutely can't stand this design pattern either, but I ended up using it as well. I would advise that the best way is to actually respect the 'never show again' button. One pop-up isn't too annoying, but if an app asks me after I tell it to f off, I'm damn well going straight to the store and leaving a 1 star. It does work, but make sure it's the least annoying it can be. E.G. in a shopping app, don't show the rating pop-up in the middle of checkout, wait for the user to finish their transaction.
  - learnstats2 8y ago
    In what way is this dishonest? It's really just saying 'if you love this app, tell others - if you don't love it, tell us'. This is an honest request.
    - noxToken 8y ago
      For me, this bit: > If they rate anything below 5 you don't forward them to the App store for adding a review. This method attempts to passively hide negative reviews from the public while actively prompting users to leave positive reviews. Storefront ratings don't matter unless the user leaves the app and enters one via the official app store. Without forwarding the user, anyone with a negative review will have to specifically leave the app to leave the review. The dev will usher the positive reviewers forward to leave a public-facing review, while anything neutral or negative is sent to /dev/null or (hopefully in the least) used internally for improvements. Dishonest may not be the correct term. Perhaps "slightly misleading" is a better way to put it.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Enjoy that work around while you can. It won’t be long before Apple adds to the guidelines that the only way you can ask for a review is by using the official SKStoreReviewController.
- ianamartin 8y ago
  I really hate that pattern. I give shit ratings to apps that do that. You won't be able to do that on iOS for much longer, if you still can at all right now. It's good move on Apple's part to get rid of this garbage.
ryanbertrand 8y ago
I used “Happy Events” as trigger points to show these alerts. For example, in mobile games, we would show them after playing XX games or winning X times. I never liked the concept of showing them on app launch because it’s so intrusive to the user flow.

hobofan 8y ago

Some of the best practices regarding it that I've heard (and found to work very well in the projects I used them): - You show the user a internal 5 star rating UI. If they rate anything below 5 you don't forward them to the App store for adding a review. Works well with 3 buttons: "Rate", "Late", "Don't show again" - Best time to show it to the user for the first time is when they completed the first "major action" in the app. For e.g. a shopping app that would be completing their first order, or for Airbnb booking your first room - After that you show it to the user every ~5th time they open the app until they rated it or click "Don't show again"

lwansbrough 8y ago
Good advice for Android. For iOS, Apple actually decides when to show the user the UI. That being said, you should probably only attempt to prompt when you believe the user has had a good experience.
- nfoz 8y ago
  Does anyone else consider this to be dishonest? Sounds like Apple should take even more control.
  - hobofan 8y ago
    > Sounds like Apple should take even more control. How? In the end both Apple and Google still need to have some influx of rating to their App stores for them to function. Further reducing the ability for app creators to funnel reviewers to the App store would probably put them below that threshold.
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      The app store itself should prompt for the reviews, on a reasonable schedule after purchase/download. Maybe 3 days after purchase for a thumbs-up, thumbs-down initial impression. Two weeks after purchase for an N/5 star review. Two months after purchase for a star rating update and descriptive text review for other potential customers. Six months after purchase, and yearly thereafter, for a star rating update and descriptive feedback aimed at the vendor, such as pain points and enhancement requests. Each time, allow the user to opt-out of review request nagging. This would also allow a chart of user satisfaction over time, filtering reviews by length of ownership, and trends in user satisfaction, especially in response to version updates. I am far more likely to trust a reviewer that has gone from a three-star rating to a five-star rating, over four years of owning the app, and has reviewed other apps from different vendors, than someone who gives it five-stars after a week, has never reviewed anything else, and then vanishes forever. One would think that the company that developed PageRank could do something similar for review rankings, to weed out review-bots, astroturfers, and straw-purchasers.
endless1234 8y ago
Extremely common pattern on Android, but it's so transparent in its dishonesty it really annoys me. But I guess it works for the masses anyway..
- hobofan 8y ago
  I agree. Learning about that basically made the ratings in the Play store worthless in my eyes, as it only represents how well you play the game. 1-4.0 stars means that you probably haven't added that feature to your app. The various degrees of 4.1-5.0 then only mean that you have optimized the process even more by better selecting for 5 star reviewers.
- IneffablePigeon 8y ago
  Agreed, when an app I don't love does this I now go out of my way to always click the "I love the app" button and then give a negative (honest) review. OTOH if I developed an app I'd probably do the same thing :/
  - zrobotics 8y ago
    Yep, I absolutely can't stand this design pattern either, but I ended up using it as well. I would advise that the best way is to actually respect the 'never show again' button. One pop-up isn't too annoying, but if an app asks me after I tell it to f off, I'm damn well going straight to the store and leaving a 1 star. It does work, but make sure it's the least annoying it can be. E.G. in a shopping app, don't show the rating pop-up in the middle of checkout, wait for the user to finish their transaction.
- learnstats2 8y ago
  In what way is this dishonest? It's really just saying 'if you love this app, tell others - if you don't love it, tell us'. This is an honest request.
  - noxToken 8y ago
    For me, this bit: > If they rate anything below 5 you don't forward them to the App store for adding a review. This method attempts to passively hide negative reviews from the public while actively prompting users to leave positive reviews. Storefront ratings don't matter unless the user leaves the app and enters one via the official app store. Without forwarding the user, anyone with a negative review will have to specifically leave the app to leave the review. The dev will usher the positive reviewers forward to leave a public-facing review, while anything neutral or negative is sent to /dev/null or (hopefully in the least) used internally for improvements. Dishonest may not be the correct term. Perhaps "slightly misleading" is a better way to put it.
scarface74 8y ago
Enjoy that work around while you can. It won’t be long before Apple adds to the guidelines that the only way you can ask for a review is by using the official SKStoreReviewController.
ianamartin 8y ago
I really hate that pattern. I give shit ratings to apps that do that. You won't be able to do that on iOS for much longer, if you still can at all right now. It's good move on Apple's part to get rid of this garbage.

ryanbertrand 8y ago

I used “Happy Events” as trigger points to show these alerts. For example, in mobile games, we would show them after playing XX games or winning X times. I never liked the concept of showing them on app launch because it’s so intrusive to the user flow.