

My iPhone app has mostly very positive and very negative ratings.  What to do? - amichail

See:<p>http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=312424712&#38;mt=8&#38;uo=6<p>The only comments are positive ones, so it's not clear why some people didn't like this app at all.  My guess is that they didn't understand it and/or didn't find it fun.  Or maybe they were expecting fancy graphics and sound.<p>Maybe there's a way to discourage people who are not likely to give this app a high rating from trying it at all?
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keefe
I think this is just part of human nature - checkout amazon ratings. I think
an app either fulfills the intent of the user (yay!) or it doesn't (it
sucks!). Maybe prompt them on uninstall to tell you why?

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azsromej
I've also noticed this pattern. My textual reviews are fairly positive, but I
have a lot of 1-star reviews. In some cases, people have emailed me and it has
become clear that the app simply didn't meet their expectations (in 9/10 cases
they didn't seem to have actually read the app description).

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amichail
Is there something I can write at/near the beginning of the description that
would discourage people from trying it who probably won't like it?

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gregk
I looked at it. From the blurb it was not clear to me how it worked. I
downloaded and used the tutorial. That made it clear. I would add something
like "For you math Wonks!" It isn't the normal iPhone puzzle game. Also you
use sort of non obvious gestures maybe find a way to indicate the +- ones on
the main screen. I can see the average iPhone puzzle user hitting 1 star when
they delete the app.

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amichail
Maybe I should make the tutorial mandatory?

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gregk
Three ideas - a picture on the splash screen that shows swipes and above and
below taps and what they do with a continue button that shows up the first few
times it runs, maybe with a button also for the tutorial. Two is to put a
picture like this at the start of the tutorial. Third idea is to shade the row
and column on the first tap with some + and - indicators overlaid (maybe) or a
text box at the bottom that indicates to tap again for +_. This may need to
have a way to turn it off if the user doesn't like it.

One other thought is to make the "Solve New Puzzle" more visually distinct. It
took me a few taps to figure out the screen.

