Top Mobile Apps for Summer Travel

by Phil McGuinness

At Key Lime Interactive, we’ve provided competitive research analysis in the Auto Insurance and Banking Industry mobile app offerings for years. Now, on the heels of TripAdvisor reporting a milestone of 100 million iPhone and Android app downloads, we decided to take a quick peek at four top travel booking apps to see how they compare. We selected four brands and evaluated the Android app flight finding and booking process to find out which have the best usability, ranking them not only on number of features, but execution.

Our Methodology
The apps were awarded points or scored based on two criteria

  1. The total number of available capabilities to users
  2. The successful execution of each

In review, each app was credited for an integrated capability, such as sorting, filtering, alerts, or the ability to save flight information.   After this we looked at the execution of each feature to provide more nuance to the rankings, such as the number of sorting/filtering options provided or the flexibility of alert settings for apps that had flight alerts. The final positioning of each app in our ranking is based on a combination of those two measurements.

NUMBER 4: Expedia

Expedia is far and above the best looking app of the this group, from the landing screen that scrolls hotel and flight   destinations via colorful pictures, to the search results loading screen that mimics the view out your airplane window. The app is also extremely quick and responsive, allowing both departing and return flights to be selected without any extended load time. However, there is not much that stands out in this app beyond those features. The flight search has only a few    basic options. The results page and booking engine are relatively sparse, with only four sorting options available for results.  Although the aesthetics are exceptional, the lack of functionality in Expedia’s app results in a lower ranking in comparison  to the other apps we reviewed.

NUMBER 3: Priceline

Priceline, which acquired Kayak in June 2013, ranked just ahead of Expedia in the find flight and booking analysis. The  app has a strong branding message. William Shatner and Kaley Cuoco are available in the lower left hand corner to  chauffeur you through a flight search. During the search process, Priceline saves recent airport searches in a list, which  rewards the user for repeated uses of the app. The results page also provides six different sorting options, from Number of  Stops to Airline, which is great for users who want to avoid specific airlines or too many layovers. While the remainder of  the experience is solid, Priceline lacks to the bells and whistles of some of the apps in this competitor set.

NUMBER 2: TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor’s strengths are apparent from the minute you land on the results page, where sorting and filtering options are available. This allows users to select time of day for departure or arrival, the number of stops, or to view specific airlines. Additionally, users can request alerts for flight prices from within the app, and the bottom bar links to comparison rates from other providers making it easier for bargain hunters to find the best price. Finally, users who want to save their information for later can e-mail their itinerary after selecting flights – a very convenient feature for frequent travelers who need to keep their itinerary close at hand.

AND THE WINNER IS… Kayak

 Kayak’s no-frills interface belies a wealth of functionality, and ranks first primarily due to stronger execution of features  that  can be found in the TripAdvisor app. Kayak has the most robust sorting and filtering menus available, as well as  extensive options for setting alerts. The app is also the only one we evaluated that allowed multi-city flight searches.  Anyone thinking of hopping around Europe this summer will appreciate this feature. During the flight search, the  Kayak app allows users to add any nearby airports to their search, truly a plus when traveling to or from areas with  multiple airports that may have better fares. The quality of Kayak’s many features make it best in class for flight finding  and booking.

 We hope you found this ranking helpful. Key Lime Interactive offers expanded custom competitive research. If you’d like  more information, please contact KLI  here.

New Director of Quantitative Research Leads Competitive Initiatives

KLI couldn’t be happier to welcome Dana Bishop to our team as our new Director of Quantitative Research. Dana has been working in the field of user research for 20 years and flaunts extensive experience with a variety of research methods. Above all, Dana has perfected the art and science of creating simple, yet highly-informative large-scale online user experience research studies. Her graceful orchestration of traditional scaled questions and directed tasks for users results in detailed feedback, thoughtful analysis and poignant evidence that informs design for clients far and wide.
Prior to joining Key Lime Interactive, Dana was lead researcher and manager of Keynote Systems’ Competitive Research group. While at Keynote, Dana led longitudinal quantitative research studies across numerous verticals and global markets for companies such as Carnival, Expedia, Travelocity, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Yahoo!, and State Farm Insurance. Dana began her career in the 1990s in San Francisco where she spent 3 years at Charles Schwab & Co conducting a nationwide field study and weekly in-lab sessions with customers; as well as time spent running usability testing for edu-tainment software in school environments.
After just three short months as part of the KLI team, Dana’s expertise is in high-demand! Custom studies are exceeding client expectations and all the while, Dana and other Key Limers are preparing the following types of reports for incremental release:
KLI Competitive Research. Naturally, with the addition of Dana to the Key Lime team, we’ve both expanded and refined our competitive research. Dana is spearheading several existing and new reports that fall under the following categories:
Competitive Index:
Currently our Auto Insurance Competitive Index and our Mobile Banking Competitive Index are widely used by nearly all top players in their respective industries. For this research KLI runs a survey to deeply understand the perceptions, beliefs, needs and desires of users when using their mobile devices (both web and apps) in context of a given industry and then indexes and compares capabilities across major players; ultimately ranking them and revealing strengths and opportunities for the industry and individual companies to move ahead. Inquire about the purchase of either of these reports, or suggest an index for your industry…
Competitive Benchmark Studies
Additionally, KLI publishes annual Cruise Competitive Benchmark results in June each year. This is a task-based assessment of the leading cruise industry websites by users (a mix of first-time and experienced users). The study analyzes the user experience in trying to learn about the cruise line, find a cruise of interest, and book online. It measures the user experience in terms of satisfaction, site reliability and performance, as well as NPS and likelihood to return and purchase. Dana’s keen understanding of what the cruise industry needs and pays attention to when executing sound design changes is part of what makes this benchmark study novel and desired. The study capitalizes on the value proposition offered by the various brands: Are they selling the ratio of cost to experience well to their digital consumers? Are they painting a clear picture that informs decisions and promotes action? At present, leaders in the industry are working with Dana to refine the June release to include exactly what they’ve been missing. Want to be involved in that conversation? Have ideas for a similar study in a different vertical? Learn more…
Custom Competitive Benchmark Studies
To take this one-step farther and truly meet the demands of KLI clients, Dana is leading the development of Custom Competitive Benchmark studies for several clients in the retail, travel, medical and financial industries. These studies are quite similar to the general Competitive Benchmark studies in that they are also task-based assessments of sites within a given industry by users. They also focus on which site(s) are providing the best user experience; but differ in that they allow companies to custom design aspects of the study along with KLI researchers. Companies can “ customize” by selecting the competitors they are most interested in benchmarking themselves against, as well as having input about the tasks users complete, and timing of when the study fields. Need to benchmark yourself against competitors in your industry? Learn more…

HTML5 or Native OS: Which is Right for Your Business?

by Phil McGuinness
A hot topic right now in mobile user experience is the debate between providing an HTML5 web app versus a more traditional Native OS app. Simply put, HTML5 is a method of programming a mobile website to behave like an app (think m.youtube.com) which can be accessed through any modern tablet or smartphone browser. Conversely, apps written for a Native OS are  developed to run directly on Android or iOS smartphones (they are designed for each native platform), and must be downloaded through the GooglePlay Store or Apple App Store. Both approaches are a great way to provide web content to smartphone and tablet users, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Which of these approaches is right for your business? At Key Lime Interactive, we are exploring this question in depth, and have key information to help you make the right decision.
From a development standpoint, HTML5 is the clear winner in both cost and flexibility. If your business has a website, it’s a given that you already have programmers on hand who can write HTML5 code.  In addition, your programmers will only have to program the basic code once.  Of course, during QA testing some minor edits will need to be made in order to support different browsers and browser versions in the marketplace such as Chrome, Safari, Explorer and more. It’s also important to note that since your code lives on the web rather than on a user’s device, you can make changes on the fly without having to roll out a new application update via an App Store update every time you make a change.
If you decide to make a Native OS app, you will need to hire  a team  who know the specific language for each operating system, or a jack-of-all-trades programmer who knows all of the relevant languages. These programming skills are much less common, and therefore, can be more expensive, than HTML5-only developers.  In order to provide a robust and compelling experience for each OS, you’ll need someone who understands the nuances of each platform. This requires a developer who can write for each operating system, and that’s no small task. If you decide to go the path of a a Native OS app then you’re developing for both Android and iOS and that means you’re now doubling every step of the cycle, including programming, testing/QA, and maintaining the code. When it comes time to update your apps, you’ll also need to release an update two versions via the GooglePlay Store or the Apple App Store.Publishing via either store requires approval before your app can be made available for download.
So why use the Native OS app approach at all you might ask? It sounds expensive AND time consuming. We would submit that developing for a Native OS platform is the right choice.  This approach excels at something that we at KLI hold near and dear to our hearts: you guessed it, user experience! Currently, an HTML5 mobile site compete to a Native OS app in look, feel, functionality, and overall speed. Of course, Android and iOS platforms have quirks which make for a unique user experience on each device but the robust and rich UX is worth the price of admission. See our previous article for a detailed discussion about  how Android users can be alienated by seemingly insignificant design choices. When building an HTML5 web app to be standardized across all devices, you lose the custom feel ofa Native OS app.
The functionality advantage for Native OS apps comes partially from a better support system – not only from Apple and Google – but from the online community of app programmers – and also from the apps being installed directly on the device.  This allows easy access to smartphone features such as the camera, calendar, or contacts. HTML5 web apps are starting to add these functionalities as programmers begin to develop clever new approaches, but equivalency is a long way off at this point in time. Finally, it is well known throughout the industry that the HTML5 web apps react significantly slower than Native OS apps in both UI and load speed. These factors combine to create a smoother, faster, and more intuitive user experience for a Native OS app.
The other main areas differences  between these two approaches relate to  security, monetization, and accessibility, which will vary in importance can be depending on what you want from your app. Native OS apps have better security since the code and URL strings are not accessible like they are in an HTML5 web app. If you happen to want your app to be accessible online, you’ll need to stick with Native OS.  To rely on an existing app store for monetization, you’ll need to either build a Native OS app, or use a program like PhoneGap to “wrap” your HTML5 web app to make it appear as an app in the app store that users can download, although it only behaves as a link to the web app itself.  Of course, selling your app through an app store means giving away a cut of the profit to the owner of that store/ HTML5 web apps allows you to create your own monetization strategy and avoid the App Store fees.
In conclusion, it takes careful consideration of your business, and knowledge of each approach to make the right decision for you. Do you need a less expensive, low-frills, dynamic experience? If so, an HTML5 web app would be the best approach for you. However, if your major concerns are usability, performance, and security, and you have a little room in your development budget, then a  Native OS approach is the way to go.  In our opinion, until HTML5 can catch up to the user experience provided by Native OS apps, enterprise companies will almost always want to represent themselves with Native OS apps for the enhanced usability and unparaelleled user experience. In the coming months, Key Lime Interactive will be conducting a study to measure the current user experience of HTML5 web apps, so stay tuned for more detailed information in a future newsletter.

 

Mobile Words of Wisdom

Last month we attended the Mobile Marketing Summit in NYC. Speakers included folks from GE Healthcare, Citibank, InterContinental Hotels, Gilt Groupe and others. We walked away with new insight on how companies are shaping and preparing their mobile solutions.
It’s important for our research team to consider the business stakeholder perspective as we offer opportunities to improve tested solutions. We’ve highlighted a few points from the summit that the team is keeping in mind along with key concepts for moving solutions to the next level.
 
Mobile Words of Wisdom:

  • Time Spent” has historically been a KPI of engagement with a product.  In mobile, this is not exactly the best metric.  You’re really looking to create excellent experience in 1-2 minutes, even 30 seconds.  We want users to spend their “snack size” or “snackable” found time to use our product and go on their way.
    – Sol Masch, Director of Mobile Sales & Strategy, Time Inc.

“Thirty second snacks.”  Nice summation, we agree.

  • 73% of Shoppers prefer their phone over a real live sales associate.
    – Martin Lange, Executive Marketing Director of Digital Strategy and Global Head of Mobile at Ogilvy & Mather

SEVENTY-THREE PERCENT!  We believe it.  In fact, we’ve confirmed this estimate in our research.

  • B2B Mobile Engagement has so many creative outlets these days and General Electric is capitalizing on this with Instagram and even better with Vine and their #6secondscience and #gravityday campaigns.
    – Linda Boff, Executive Director of Global Brand Marketing at GE

The #gravityday vine can be seen here: Gravity Day in action. We love this.

  • The Holiday season is proven to be the most expensive season to win a LOYAL user.   Folks are willing to try out new apps during the holiday season, but those engagements are shorter.  Historical data shows that device releases create a better opportunity to acquire mobile app users.  “October may be a good month for you.”
    – Christian Galvin, US Director of Mobile Apps at Fiksu
  • “Wouldn’t we all LOVE to deliver an experience that grosses the whole digital ecosystem!?”  Example: You begin a transaction on your mobile phone as you wait for the subway, something distracts you and you don’t complete it, but later when you login on your iPad at home the status of that transaction is exactly where you left it.
    – Melissa Stevens, Head of Internet and Mobile, Citi Consumer Banking

Melissa isn’t alone.  This concept can be applied to retail, entertainment, recipe searches, etc.
Have anything to add?  What else can we consider important notes, goals or concepts to keep in mind as we move forward in the development and improvement of mobile interfaces?  Share your thoughts with your team.  We’d love to hear.

Android OS Conformance: How Many Apps are Getting it Wrong?

Android is now the number one Mobile platform worldwide and as a result we’re seeing an increased interest among our clients in how to compete in the global application marketplace. Google Play, formerly the Android Marketplace has become the competitive hot spot for installations onto mobile devices and tablets, yet; somehow, a number of apps/app developers are getting it wrong! We’ve noted that a number of players have yet to adhere to the defined Android OS development guidelines. Let’s take a look at a few examples where a clear understanding of guidelines would improve the usability of a provided app.

Take figure 1: The Chase Mobile app.
Android OS Conformance
A few issues jump out that appear to be quick-fix usability problems. First, the bottom menu bar seen here is being phased out because newer phones don’t possess the touch buttons that run on Android 4.1 (Jellybean). You might note that it also takes up a considerable amount of screen space making it undesirable. On the right hand side you can see the right pointing carets (sic) which are an iOS feature, not an Android OS feature. Additionally, at the top there is no indication of which app you’re presently using, or how to navigate backward to previous screens. We’re thinking that there should be an action bar of some kind to help with navigation within the app. Finally, after looking more closely at figure 1 you may have also noted that there is no Chase Bank insignia or identification. Despite the familiar design for iOS users, the app seems to have a number of usability issues that are easy to identify. While an iOS user may find this App is easy to use, Android OS users have reportedly found the interface to be confusing and we predict that such a user is at risk to abandon.
Generally, we’ve learned that our Android OS users expect to see apps that are in the Android OS style, design, and user interface (UI). We’ve also noted that when engaged in a head to head comparison, it’s common for Android OS to have a completely different User Experience (UX) than the iOS audience providing evidence to reconsider a direct transfer of iOS designed apps into the Google Play store. Google agrees: “Most developers want to distribute their apps on multiple platforms. As you plan your app for Android, keep in mind that different platforms play by different rules and conventions. Design decisions that make perfect sense on one platform will look and feel misplaced in the context of a different platform. While a “design once, ship anywhere” approach might save you time up-front, you run the very real risk of creating inconsistent apps that alienate users. Consider [following the] guidelines to avoid the most common traps and pitfalls.”
Our biggest bit of advice: Alienating your user base can be dangerous and wreak havoc on your ROI. We’ve seen an increasing investment into the development of Mobile and Tablet Applications and given the spending we recommend careful consideration of your user base when making decisions about how to approach and handle the various operating systems.
Android OS
Our clients often ask us how to gain a competitive edge against other apps in their product category and we provide several customized options for them. Adherence to these guidelines is the easiest first step. Specifically, one option is to improve the app navigation by using gestures that Android OS users might be used to. A “side swipe” is familiar to Android users, in our user testing we have seen frustration among Android as they repeatedly attempt to navigate to the next screen by trying to use the “side swipe” gesture. A “side swipe” reduces the reloading caused by the back and forward buttons.
figure 3

Another element that is often overlooked in apps is the use of Android OS style Icons and functions. Something as simple as selecting the date or time has a specific User Interface (UI) that Google specifies as the standard to use. If one deviates from the Android OS “picker” and “spinner” (figure 2), users become confused.

We maintain that the less the user has to think, the better they will be able to do what they want to do within the app. A strong overall User Experience (UX) is an important central function to fulfilling the user’s desired intentions; giving the user the ability to do what they want, when they want it, in an easy and intuitive manner. We’re well versed with what constitutes a strong UX and help our clients bring that to their current and future customers.

We’ve developed an Android OS checklist to quickly determine if your solution is meeting today’s published Android OS guidelines. We encourage you to test your own site: To get your checklist inquire here.

Mobile Banking Competitive Review Release: June 28th.

THE STATE OF THE MOBILE BANKING LANDSCAPE
Consumers drive technological advancement in the banking industry and in the past two years they have driven the top US banks to offer complete mobile programs with a variety of services to meet the needs of this on-the-go audience.
The evolution of banking tools began with the ability to receive a text message to your feature phone with your balance information. Since, we’ve seen tremendous expansion as mobile solutions have evolved to encompass features like visual check capture, debit card deactivation, person to person payments, mobile wallet solutions, and integrated incentive programs.  As the teller lines get shorter at the brick and mortar locations, this broad feature list has become an element of attraction and retention of consumers for banking institutions.
Additionally, as the leaders pave the way, regional banks and credit unions observe and mimic solutions that prove successful.
INFORMATION TO PUT YOU AHEAD
The Mobile Banking Competitive Review by Key Lime Interactive summarizes these new, successful and well received features across the industry so that both the leaders and the small institutions can make at-a-glance decisions about areas that they should work to improve to satisfy their existing and prospective customers. KLI’s research experts highlight opportunities that they discover in their evaluation and ultimately assist in moving the entire industry forward.
In a detailed report KLI profiles the competitive mobile landscape of six of  the top US retail banks: Bank of America, Chase (JP Morgan Chase), Citibank (Citigroup), Wells Fargo & Company, USAA and PNC and ultimately reveals which bank offers their consumers the best mobile solutions.  This includes a general discussion about what these banks are doing to provide for their retail banking customers via mobile optimized sites and apps (iOS and Android). Data is captured from real customers of each bank and includes screenshots of features from behind the login screens of each provider.
Additionally, KLI shares the methods employed to rank the banks based on consumers’ self-reported preferences and insights; provides a best-in-class feature list, as well as a comparative list of the available features of the six; and identify trends and opportunities that bridge the gap between consumer expectations and the current banking solutions. This consumer based solution differs from other syndicated reports as KLI uses these consumers’ preferences to weigh the importance of features.
The report will be released to buyers on June 28, 2013.  To learn more or purchase your copy fill out the fields below:
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