Every year we spend more time watching videos on our mobile devices. In the United States, people spent 42 minutes a day viewing digital video on their mobile device last year, compared to 23 minutes on their computers. As we enter a new era where video is central to mobile content consumption, more and more mobile apps are looking for ways not only to seamlessly incorporate video into their apps but also to enhance the video experience they present their users.
That’s why we developed Interactive Video-on-Demand, a new feature for streaming recorded videos inside your stories. What makes it special is that you can use different interactive components on different sections of your video. It will enable you to create engaging and participatory video experiences where users directly interact with your content.
There is no doubt about the power of video. According to a 2018 survey 85 percent of millennials in the US buy a product or service after watching a video. On the other hand, adding video functionality without worrying about technical difficulties is a challenge. So here are the capabilities of the interactive video:
High quality streaming: We use dedicated CDNs so you won’t be worrying about managing scalability and performance for your videos. Your users will enjoy your videos seamlessly.
Multiple interactions at different sections: You can add different interactions on your videos. Imagine at one part of your video you ask your users about their opinion on a product or topic. Later in that video you’ll be able to direct your users with a call-to-action. This interactive and participatory nature of your videos will greatly enhance the experience of your users.
Short- or long-form videos: We designed interactive video to enable you to deliver easily consumable and engaging videos. So you can either add short or long-form videos depending on the experience that you want to create. It is possible to add videos from 2 minutes to 30 minutes in length.
Storyly Creator App: For simplifying the creation and uploading process of your videos, we now have the Storyly Creator App. You can invite your influencers and/or partners to the app as broadcasters and let them share the video they created with you. Uploaded videos appear on your dashboard.
Deep Linking: Just like your stories, interactive videos have their own deep links as well. So you can easily embed your videos on any related screens and let your users open them from anywhere.
There are many use cases for different verticals. Here are a few examples.
Just like how you create a new story group, you can also create an interactive video on the dashboard. If you are going to use the Storyly Creator App you first need to invite a broadcaster to the app. Once the broadcaster shares the video with you you will have it on your dashboard.
Then you can start editing it and building your interactive video experience in Storyly Studio.
Once you publish your video it is going to appear with a camera icon indicating that it’s a different format than your stories. When your users tap on the cover they are going to experience mobile-native and interactive video content. We added video-first gestures that are different from stories for a smooth viewing experience. The seek bar includes the sections where there are interactions so that your users will be an active part of your video.
The future belongs to great video storytellers. At Storyly, we aim to provide our customers video-centric capabilities so that they can engage and retain their users with seamless mobile-native experiences. There are countless use cases for interactive video and it’s just the beginning for apps from many different verticals.
Interactive video is already available for our enterprise plan customers. However, if you are not in the enterprise plan and still want to see the true potential of interactive videos in your app please contact your success manager. We’d be happy to tell you more about it and enable you to create great video experiences for your users.
User experience covers every aspect of the user’s interaction. The goal of a good user experience should be offering your customers what they want when they need when they are interacting with your app. Along with the 5Ps (Product, Place, Promotion, Price, People), you need to focus on user experience. UX is simply about improving the experience of users during their time using your app. In this article, we will focus on how the stories improve UX in your app.
What Storyly Solves?
Simply, Storyly solves discovery. It might be difficult to highlight many products at the same time with ensuring user-friendly app design. It became harder and harder to highlight different products or features in the apps. Storyly allows you to highlight your desired products and contents with different customization options. You can increase app interaction and retention rate with engaging stories. As an app owner, you can boost your revenue, keep the users in the app, and convert them to paying customers.
Onboarding
Onboarding gives the first impression to your users and the first impression last. According to Localytics, 1 of every 4 users does not come back to an app after their first use. Complex and long onboarding sessions can cause users to slip away. Storyly allows you to share engaging and interactive in-app stories unlike a traditional in-app page.
Social Media Experience
Stories are used in many different social media channels now. Users are getting used to the concept of stories. According to Jacob’s Law of Internet User Experience, when people get their cumulative experience of other websites, that adds to their understanding of how a website should work. Therefore, if your website looks similar to most other websites, then people are going to know how to use it. They are going to focus on your products, services, and offerings rather than focusing on how to use your website. If people are confused on the Web, they probably are going to leave! Stories will ensure the familiarity of the designs of your app with the best practices of Instagram.
Being Familiar
As well as familiar icons, symbols, buttons, or colors, you can also use features that users are already familiar with from other apps. One of the best examples of these formats is stories. Storyly allows you to use story format in your apps.
Banners vs. Stories
People are exposed to so much information and products on the internet, and they have a limited time. Therefore, they don’t want to dig into information so much. They are open to the information that comes from the easiest way. With Storyly, people have to scroll less and able to see more of your highlighted products or services.
Focusing on Mobile
Despite the similarity of web design and mobile app design, they differentiate in particular ways. Mobile apps use a static carousel, which is actually designed for websites. However, Storyly offers a design that is produced for mobile apps only.
Last Words
Storyly is an interactive, familiar, creative, and easy way to interact with your customers and improve user experience. You can add customized stories to your app with Storyly. Contact us for more detail.
According to the data obtained with the best mobile application analysis, the applications in the popular application categories in 2020 and will be trending in 2021 are a remarkable list for mobile app developers.
Mobile and Fitness Apps
With the pandemic process coming into our lives, Mobile and Fitness Apps is the leading mobile app downloaded the most in 2021. Fitness apps, which are very useful both at home and in outdoor sports, contain many features, save lives, and provide users convenience. Mobile and fitness apps, which will be very mobile app trendy in 2021, are at the top of our list.
Online Tutorial Apps
The pandemic we are in has reshaped the entire education system and transformed education systems into online tutorial platforms. The best part about online tutorial apps is that it brings teachers and students together very easily. Mobile apps that bring students and educators together provide commissions with these meetings.
Book Sharing Apps
It’s like a social media platform where book lovers meet. Budgeting for books is difficult these days, and not everyone is lucky enough to have a library. It is a book sharing app for readers who love books and want to make a library. App users can share the books they own both online and offline. Besides, the app allows readers located nearby to chat and meet. Especially during the pandemic period, the mobile user’s demand for book sharing apps will increase.
Virtual Travelling Apps
The current pandemic process prevented international and domestic travel and trips. Virtual travel apps and virtual reality technologies are straightforward, and you can make realistic virtual tours. Virtual tour apps can bring travelers together or encourage those who are bored of sitting at home to take a virtual tour. Also, visiting museums has become very popular during the 2020 pandemic. During the pandemic process in 2021, we want to worry about our loved ones and give gifts on special occasions even when we are away from them. Gift delivery practices greatly alleviate the difficulties that countries pose due to restrictions. Such apps seem to be a mobile app trend for a few more years.
Gift Delivering Apps
During the pandemic process in 2021, we want to worry about our loved ones and give gifts on special occasions even when we are away from them. Gift delivery practices greatly alleviate the difficulties that countries pose due to restrictions. Such apps seem to be in trending app categories for a few more years.
Virtual Health Check-up Apps
Virtual Health Check-up Apps offer the opportunity to follow our health records, especially in diseases such as COVID-19. Such apps, such as quarantine situations, that monitor patients virtually at home and facilitate communication with them will be top-rated. Virtual healthcare monitoring apps provide an essential convenience by using artificial intelligence technology.
Motivational and Inspirational Apps
Apps that inspire users to do something creative are among the apps people need most. It is among the most trendy apps, especially during the pandemic process. Today, people of all ages are looking for inspirational ideas. Many people have the idea of starting a start-up and are looking for inspiration. Especially in 2021, this number will increase with COVID-19.
Women Security and Alert Apps
Security and security practices of women are among the most important and trending apps. There are many trend apps, including live location tracking, reaching security forces with a warning button, listing the users’ communication information and keeping them in contact with them, and the color of the location’s security level.
Event and Party Planning Apps
An event and party planning app helps you plan and share your day, week, even monthly schedules. It can also help them hire the musicians, decorators, and employees required when planning an event or party. You can manage a budget quickly and easily. You can provide locations for events and parties. It will be handy for companies and people who will work from home during the pandemic process.
Parking Space Finding Apps
Especially big cities suffer from heavy traffic and excess of cars. Therefore, parking lot finding apps are extremely convenient for users living in big cities. Also, these apps help users reserve a parking space, access parking hours information and prices. Also, apps integrated with Google access GPS and traffic analysis data. It is shown among popular mobile apps in many cities according to population density.
Increasing your app engagement and retention is easier than you think, check out Storyly now.
Black Friday is a time when online sales are booming as you know. Therefore, your app also must adapt to this marketing environment. We have prepared the following recommendations on preparing your app for Black Friday, which competition is intense and online revenues are peaking. Are you ready to know how can you make ready your app for Black Friday? Let’s start!
Keep Your App Fresh
If you want to increase users’ interest in your mobile app, you must keep your app updated and regularly add rich content.It is an example of keeping up-to-date with the mobile app payment system. Especially for Black Friday, your mobile app payment system should be excellent. In-app purchases are significant for mobile app engagement. Keeping up-to-date and rich in content will increase your site traffic and move you to the top in on-site purchases.
Get Users A Powerful Reason To Download Your App
Mobile app publishers and marketers should ask themselves, “Do I give users a strong reason to download my mobile app? “. It would be best if you promised users a purpose and a reward for downloading your app. For example, you can offer special discounts to people who download your mobile app for the first time. It would be best to provide various advantages to your customers who log in from your mobile app.
Recommendation programs are also a very effective method to attract users to the app. You can give each of your users a unique promo code and encourage them to share your app. It will bring you new customers, while your user continues to shop from your app. Thus, both the inviting user and the invited user are rewarded.
Make Use Of Push Notification
Mobile push notifications are essential to show that you start Black Friday. Because Black Friday doesn’t withdraw at the same time in every store; moreover, it does not end simultaneously. If you wish, you can continue to sell your products on your app like Black Friday.
It would be best if you didn’t forget to customize the push notifications. You should customize the push notifications as much as possible. For example, you can notify that a discount has started on the product or items your user recently viewed. Or you can send the message that an item in your cart is currently 50% off due to Black Friday.
You can review our blog post titled “7 Push Notification Strategies to Increase App Engagement” to increase and improve push notifications app engagement.
Use Gamification To Increase Retention
When Black Friday is over, your users shouldn’t leave your app either. You should keep your users’ interest alive and add fun gamification features to your app. It would be best if you continued to offer various benefits to your users. You can continue to keep your users in the app by providing gamification features with these advantages. In this way, your app engagement will continue to hold without falling, and your conversion rate will increase.
For more detailed information about Mobile App Engagement and Conversion Rate, you can review the recent blog post published by App Samurai, one of the leading names in the mobile app industry.
Engage Users With Your App Smartly
The Black Friday craze is at a peak in online sales. Therefore, we can say that competition is the most fierce. In this atmosphere, you need appropriate marketing strategies and a knowledgeable team to prepare your Black Friday app. As Storyly, we are ready to assist you if you want a team to reach your target audience, manage your marketing strategy correctly, and know your app’s technical details. Your competitors can get in front of you with the support team to help them. Do not be deprived of these services. Prepare your app for Black Friday with Storyly! What’s more, Storyly 2.0, a brand new way to engage with your users, is now live!
Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. What does sameness we come across on different apps mean? In this blog post, we talk about the positive sides of apps looking like each other for user experience from a design perspective.
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The left and right part of the below shows the same element – time. However, the way it is displayed is different. On the left, we have the skeuomorphic layout, on the right we have the flat design. These are the two UX/UI elements that we will be discussing in this read. Before moving on, let us first understand what these terms really mean.
In the simplest of definitions, skeuomorphism is a concept in designing that is based on displaying digital elements that portray their existence in the actual world. In the past decade or so, this concept has been widely used by operating systems, software manufacturers and UI & UX designers around the globe.
The most easily understandable example is the Microsoft Windows operating system’s Recycle Bin icon, that is designed like a real trash can, for all your trash files and folders.
Let us now have a brief overview of some of the major benefits and current uses of the skeuomorph designs.
Having said that, yes there are some drawbacks to the skeuomorphism concept too:
Flat design is a UI designing style that is based on simplified, 2-D objects and elements with eye-catching colors and themes.Unlike the skeuomorphism concept, the idea behind flat design UI is to keep user interaction as simple as a designer possibly can.
Flat designs were initially made to optimize website’s performance and make it responsive on various mobile devices and tablets. Since it follows a more ‘minimalist’ approach, the images are kept simple with minimal designs and textures, which eventually, allows them to load faster as compared to the skeuomorph design elements.
The most noticeable operating systems based on the flat design model include Windows 8 and Apple iOS 7. Back in the day, this is how the Windows 8 home screen used to look like:
Here are some of the positive aspects of a flat design UI model:
Flat designs, however, come with their own cons, too. Let’s have a look at some of their negative points:
So why did the transition from skeuomorphism to flat design occur in the first place? Let’s have a brief overview.
During the mid 2000s, a strong resistance was built against the concept of skeuomorphism and the way it was being overused by software companies and designers. It is even believed that Apple’s former iOS Chief Scott Forstall was let go by the company due to his craze for skeuomorphism after Steve Jobs, the pioneer of skeuomorph designs, passed away.
This was the time around when the iPad featured an actual bookshelf depiction for ebooks that used real book covers and titles. Even though the visuals were not deemed too ineffective, it defeated the basic purpose as the book titles were close to impossible to read and only a specific number of books could actually fit in the space. Here is how it looked:
Critics argued that users do not need to be shown an actual bookshelf to trigger a call-to-action, they are already aware of that. The call-to-action in this case was clicking on a specific ebook.
In addition to this, skeuomorphism designs were largely based on traditional and relatively old depictions of items such as the camera icon, address books, calendars, etc. These portrayals started to become unpopular, especially among the younger generations. Also, the skeuomorph designs created a lot of monotony and took away design innovations that was the need of the hour.
And hence, during this time period, skeuomorphism began to lose its charm and flat designs took over.
After almost a decade of being out of the business, skeuomorphism made a prominent comeback with the experimental UI design by Apple’s Bob Burrough. The operating system had a feature of making the phone icons react to the movement on the phone, in accordance to the way those icons would be visible and the way their textures and shadows would react had the icons been in an actual world.
In addition to this, more and more designers and organizations have started to revive the long-lost skeuomorphism concept by coming up with designs that follow the similar skeuomorph approach, however, with lesser dependence and restrictions on old or traditional button or icon themes.
This is an example of how UI/UX designers and design hubs like Dribbble are coming up with skeuomorphism based designs, however, making sure the objects portray the concepts of today’s markets so that younger audiences can also be reached out to.
One of the most noticeable skeuomorphism-based design concepts that have made huge in-roads in the modern digital sphere is the wearable industry. Nowadays, smartwatches are equipped with skeuomorph icons and designs, giving it a more smooth and simplified feel as those traditional objects back in the day. Here is what we are talking about:
Digital transformation is an inevitable phenomenon that would go on forever. The only constant in the present day digital world is that every aspect is a variable – the needs of today will not remain the needs of tomorrow.
UI and UX design is no different either. Today, users might like the skeuomorphism-based icons on their devices, however, the same users might not be liking those icons after some time. A designer needs to be at his very best in terms of market analysis, user requirements, competitor analysis, etc. That’s the only way forward in this highly competitive digital arena.
CAC, LTV, number of app crash reports? Which mobile application performance metrics should you be following?
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