Tired of “Wow”
General
- September 5th, 2006
Niko Nyman is tired of Wow.
Janne Jalkanen is tired of Wow.
I am tired of Wow.
What about you? (a bit insider question, sorry…)
My point, echoing Niko and Janne, is that we need “wow” in S60 devices/apps, to make people try them. But “wow” is short-lived. In a couple of weeks, the wow wears off. Wow might make you buy a product. But great user experience makes you buy the product again, and recommend the product to your friends - or blog readers.
Risto and rest of S60 User Experience blog gang: I think Niko’s original post was partly directed to you. What do you think about this all?
Bonus link: Shells. Ghosts. a great article about why the experience of mobile devices rarely lives up to expectations
I think what Nyman says is very correct. I don’t think anyone here would disagree with his comments. “Wow” only gets a product so far; and as we know, the majority of users don’t want or need “wow”. Thanks for checking in with us.
All you who are tired of wow are absolutely correct. Succesful mobile apps needs, besides flow, ultimate use experienc along the way and some other extra things, for instance viral effects etc.
One thing I want to point out that WOW is definetely needed in the future. We, market insiders have seen all, have experienced the wow’s. But the mass market - still waiting for next hit from SMS - needs the wow.
I argument on this is that the mobile offering is increasing and the competition is getting rougher and rougher. You already see this with mobile games. As a developer: If you do not have wow, you get unnoticed, when you get unnoticed you do not get change to sell to the mass markets.
Even though I am tired of the concept “WOW”, I second Mikko-Pekka.
Seth Godin talks very much about similar ideas in Purple Cow etc. In order to get noticed from the ever-increasing clutter, you have to be remarkable = worth making a remark about.