I’m broke and I can’t afford to… (fill in the blank…save, add to my retirement, go on a vacation, and pay my bills). The truth of the matter is most people are only broke in the way that they spend money and the great news is that can be fixed. So stop complaining and let’s get started.Take this daily challenge below for 7 days. Each day has different stresses and different issues that we respond to so until you know what you do you can’t change it.Track everything that you do. First is the easiest because all you have to do is keep a daily diary of everything you spend whether it is cash, debit card, check or credit card. There is no right or wrong here just keep a diary.Next take your monthly bill and break them down to what it cost you per day. Things like groceries, cable TV, Newspaper subscriptions, car payments and utilities.The next is a little tougher. Go back over the last year and make a list of all the unexpected expenses that hit you. Things like tires that blew out, unexpected car repairs and health related issues.After the week is up take you diary of daily expenses and put it on one list adding up the total for each item. Now look at each of those and think about how important they are to you. Look at how they affect your life. Not being preachy here but things like tobacco products and alcoholic product add to not only the cost of our health care but also to things like how much time we spend at the gym to work off those couple of beers we have a day.Just think if you could eliminate just one of those items you spend $35 per week on that is merely an impulse item. This would save you $1820 a year and if you have been broke for 10 years then this is $18200 plus interest. Not bad for cutting out just one $5 per day item.Now let’s look at those items that are monthly types of bills. Do you really watch all those channels that you have on your TV. Could you lower the bill by $20 a month by eliminating some of them? What about your monthly electric bill. Could you move the thermostat just a few degrees and see a $20 a month savings? What about groceries? Most of us would not miss $20 per month out of the grocery basket.If you can find 5 items that you can save $20 per month on then you have save $1200 per year. Or better yet $12000 in 10 years. Not a lot but if you are “broke” it is a great fix.Now let’s look at unexpected cost. Most of these come from us not doing something that we should have done or not done. Granted some of them are just maintenance that we would have had. But if we take better care of our health we spend less on prescriptions and health care. If we take better care of our home we have few maintenance items that cost more than if we had taken care of them sooner. And if we had done the routine maintenance on our car a simple fix would have prevented major damage from happening.Most people can find $1500 a year in unexpected costs that could have been eliminated if they had just….. Again not much but in 10 years it is $15000.All of these are small things but if you had just…then you would have saved $45200 in the last 10 years plus interest that would have raised that to $59867. I know it sounds easy but it is hard to do. But isn’t it hard living your life “broke”?Now is the time to “fix” your personal finances. Build a future with savings and a retirement plan.To find out more about how to “fix” your personal finances and build a savings plan and a retirement plan see the resource box below.

Once the app is downloaded, you have little time to take a sigh of relief, and then again start focusing on making things easier for the them till their goal is achieved.

According to the AppsFlyer, an app marketing company, the global uninstall rate for apps after 30 days is 28%. Entertainment apps are most frequently deleted, whereas apps based on Finance is least frequently deleted. No matter which app category you belong to, your strategy should be to remain in the mobile phones of users for a long time, and not just sit around but to fulfill your purpose as well.

If we analyze the encounters of users with an app step by step, it can help us unveil the critical factors that influence mobile app audiences, so that we can work upon those and achieve our purpose. Here are the details:

Step1. Finding Your App in Appstore

For this, we have to first find out what exactly users type to search an app. Based on a research, it has been found that 47% app users on iOS confirmed that they found the app through the App Store’s search engine and 53% app users on Android confirmed the same.

What have been their search queries? Interestingly, as the per the data provided by the TUNE research, 86% of the top 100 keywords were brands.With little scope for non-branded categories, most of the keywords were either of games of utility apps. Common keywords in the non branded category are: games, free games, VPN, calculator, music, photo editor, and weather.

Leaving brands aside, if we analyze the user-type of a Non-branded category, we will get two types of users:

1. Users are informed, and they know what they are search

2. Users are exploring possibilities, have no precise information in mind.

If you are a mobile app development company, targeting non-branded users, then your efforts must be directed to creating apps that compel these two types of users. To do so, we have to analyze once they are on an app store, what keywords they use to search. Regina Leuwer, with expertise in marketing & communications, bring some light to the subject. She reached out Sebastian Knopp, creator of app store search intelligence tool appkeywords, who shared with her the data of unique trending search phrases. And according to that data, in 2017, there were around 2,455 unique search phrases trending in the US.

Now, if we study these data to get information, we will find that name of the app is critical to attract the attention of the users.

If your app belongs to non-branded category, then make sure your app name is similar to the common search queries but also unique in comparison with your competitors. So that when your app name is flashed, they click it on to it, finding it purposeful and compelling both.

Step 2. Installation

Remember your users are on mobile devices has limited resources, from battery to storage and RAM to Internet. Everything is limited. So better create an application that is easy to download or say get downloaded with 5 minutes. One critical advice here:

1. Keep the application file size small.

If you are a developer, use APK Analyser to find out which part of the application is consuming maximum space. You can also reduce classes.dex file and res folder that contains images, raw files, and XML.

Step 3. Onboarding

After the user has successfully downloaded your mobile application, don’t leave anything on assumptions. Guide them properly. This you can do through an onboarding process, where users can learn the key functionality and where to begin with the mobile app. Below are the 3 things you need to keep in your mind when creating an onboarding process for your users.

Short and Crisp: The entire guidance of features and functions should be completed within few seconds, with easy options loud and clear option to skip.

Precise Information: Don’t introduce them to the app. They already know what they have downloaded. The objective to inform about the key functions and features.

Allow Users to Skip: Let the tech-savvy users skip the intro. Your app is to meet their requirement and not to have a friendly session.

Step 4. Purpose and UI
Here, the stage is set for your app and it is the golden chance for you to impress your users. What is needed here is the collaboration between purpose and UI of the app. It totally depends on the problem-solving capability and ease of use of the mobile app. Interface design plays the critical role, allowing the users to access features of the apps easily and quickly to perform the task for what they have downloaded the app. When it comes to interface design, make sure that the design is interactive and task-oriented. Here are some factors that you must take care off while creating mobile app interface:

1. Usability: The Mobile phone is an epitome of convenience and if your users find it difficult to use your app, then there is no way there are going to make the space for it in their mobile phones. From screen size to the color of the app, there are many factors that are equally critical and need attention.

2. Intuitive: To create an intuitive User Interface, you have to read the mind of the users, and develop a model based on that. The next should be precise, clear and ‘obvious’ in an interface.

3. Availability: Key features should be hidden in the drop down menu or even if so, it should be obvious for the user to look into the drop-down. An intricate work of design and research is required to make essential features available for the customers and they don’t need to navigate here and there.

If you need more help with the user-interface and innovative ideas for a mobile app, write to me [email protected] and I promise to get back to you with interesting mobile app designs.