Michal Ždanský This week, an interesting debate has erupted on the internet about app review dialogs. These are the ones that pop up on their own when you use the app and give you several options – rate the app, remind later, or decline. In this way, developers try to get a positive rating in the App Store, which can mean the line between success and failure for them, without hyperbole.
The whole debate was started by blogger John Gruber, who linked blog on Tumblr, which publishes screenshots from apps that use this controversial dialog. To do this, he invited the user to relatively radical solution:
I've long considered a public campaign against this particular tactic, urging Daring Fireball readers that when they come across these "Please rate this app" dialogs, don't hesitate to take the time to do so - just to rate the app with just one star and leave a review with the text "One star for pestering me to rate the app."
This caused consternation among some developers. Probably the loudest was Cabel Sassel from Panic (Coda), who on he wrote on his Twitter account:
The incentive "give an app that does this one star" caught me off guard - it's on the same level as "1 star until you add feature X".
A completely different reaction came from the developer of Mars Edit, Daniel Jalkut, who tries to look at the whole situation rationally and in his own way proves John Gruber right:
It is smart to go this route, given that something must be done to encourage users to leave positive ratings and reviews. That's good business instinct. But also keep in mind that the further you go down this path of annoying and disrespecting users, the further away it will be from the important non-monetization benefits mentioned above.
If someone like John Gruber is inciting your customers to rebel against a choice you've made in designing and promoting your app, think twice before labeling him as the cause of the problem. Your customers were already angry before they read Gruber's opinion, whether they knew it or not. He just gave them the context to express that anger. Take this as a warning and an opportunity to rethink your behavior before too many customers join in the act.
Jak points out John Gruber, half the problem lies with the open-source iRate project, which many developers have integrated into their applications. By default, it gives the user three options in the dialog: rate the application, comment later, or say "no, thank you". But the third option, after which one expects to not encounter the dialog again, actually cancels its discovery only until the next update. So there is no way to tell ne for good. If I didn't want to rate the app now, I probably won't want to in a month after the bugs are fixed.
Of course, the problem can be viewed from two sides. The first is the view of developers, for whom a positive review can mean the difference between being and not being. More positive ratings (and ratings in general) encourage users to buy an app or game because they feel that it is an app that has been tested by many others. The more positive ratings, the greater the chance that someone else will buy the app, and the rating also affects the ranking algorithm. Therefore, developers try to get as many ratings as possible, even at the cost of user comfort.
Apple is not exactly helpful here, on the contrary. If the developer releases an update, all ratings disappear from the leaderboard view and other locations, and users often see either "No Ratings" or only a small number of those left by users after the update. Of course, the old ratings are still there, but the user must explicitly click on them in the application details. Apple could solve the whole matter by displaying the total ratings from all versions until a certain number of ratings are reached in the new version, which is what a large number of developers are calling for.
From the user's point of view, that dialog looks more like a desperate attempt to get at least some rating, and how many times the dialog appears when it's least convenient for us and it slows down our workflow. What the developers don't realize is that other apps also implement the dialog, so you get annoyed with these annoying dialogs several times a day, which is just as annoying as some in-app ads. Unfortunately, the developers have traded the convenience of users for a desperate attempt to drive up some ratings and get as much money as possible.
So it's fair to leave the one-star ratings to those who have stooped to the practice. On the one hand, it could teach developers that they have ventured into the dark side of marketing and that this is not the way to go. Bad reviews are definitely something to start panicking about. On the other hand, otherwise excellent apps use this practice, and as I've written before, it's not responsible to give a one-star rating because of one mistake.
The whole problem can be solved in various less intrusive ways. On the one hand, users should occasionally find time and rate the apps they like, at least with those stars. That way, developers wouldn't have to stoop to said practice to get more ratings. They, on the other hand, can come up with a smarter way to get users to leave a review without feeling like they're being forced to do so (and because of the dialogue, they basically are)
For example, I like the approach taken by the developers at Guided Ways. In the app 2Do for Mac the fourth blue button appears once next to the traffic light in the bar (buttons for closing, minimizing, ...). If you don't pay attention to it, it will disappear after a while. If he clicks on it, the request for evaluation will appear, but if he cancels it, he will not see it again. Instead of an annoying pop-up dialog, the request looks more like a cute Easter Egg.
So developers should rethink the way they ask users for ratings, or they can expect their customers to pay them back with interest in the manner described by John Gruber. Even if a similar initiative were to appear regarding lousy Free-to-Play games...
If it's just once, why not. But the Runtastic application, for example, is directly a gallery of this "rate us". The application is great, you will buy it, and people will like to rate it. Push ups, pulls, squats... I have 5 of them that I use daily during training. It really pisses you off when 5 applications pester you again with the same message even after you've rated them. There will be an update and please rate me again...
Currently, three types of users write reviews:
1) hired "reviewers", i.e. marketing companies, offering reviews and evaluations for a fee
2) extremely satisfied users of the application
3) excessive frustration of the application user
If I leave out the first group, which floods especially foreign App Stores, the reviews actually only come from both sides of the satisfaction spectrum.
It follows from this that if the developer wants to have a good rating and does not want to cheat by buying a review, he has to do only one thing - top-notch and long-term honestly paid work. That's it :).
Well, if they didn't happen to have something to offer in return for the evaluation. Maybe some extra function. And it would be…
End-user-agreements are somewhat similar. Specifically waze and especially after being bought by google. Pride update, I will update at home or at work, but will not launch. I'm in the car, I turn on the weights and gossip, if I don't agree to the terms, I'm out of luck. Most importantly, safely.
It seems excessive to me. The app costs a dollar, reviews will help sell it, and people don't write a lot of reviews on their own. In other words, I'm quite sorry for this campaign from the developer's point of view. It would be enough to resolve the reappearance of that dialog in the new version - for example, my applications do not do that.
Take it as a way that by rating you will not only help the developer, but also other users.
But I admit that the system of a new rating every time with every update is annoying.