Amber Bethune

First, congratulations on becoming an expectant mother! Hopefully you find informational guides less overwhelming than this What to Expect app. I can relate to coming across ab app with so much potential to be great but the cons are too much. In these cases, It makes me wonder if the developers test the app or get any user feedback before launching. I believe that many issues and the drop-off rate can be improved with consistent user research and by capturing feedback via an In-app feedback tools. Otherwise, to your point, it was just made for the sake of saying “there’s an app for this” vs it being made with the mobile user in mind.

Thanks so much Aisha for your congratulations!!!!!! The crazy part about this app is that 4 years ago I used the same app with my first baby, and it was very easy to used with very less ads and commercials. I wonder why over the years a change was made.

Your post goes into a lot of what we’ve been reading about in terms of marketing: focus. Applications need a focus and need to put a clear path for the user in front of them to complete a specific task. An “App” that can do it all I would steer clear of. In particular, as smartphone users, we’ve grown accustomed to these applications giving exactly that user experience and if someone comes along saying they “can-do-it-all” might either have their head in the sand, or, just not caught up to the times!

The What to Expect app has an average 4.9-star rating on iPhone. When reviewing their ASO, the app name is 28 characters, the app subtitle is 24 characters, and the app description is 3,977 characters. What to Expect promotes a pregnancy app to help you have a happy, healthy pregnancy and a happy, healthy baby! Not that I’d ever use this app, but maybe their layout design could’ve benefited from leveraging a personal profile for users to connect with their local OGBYN for accurate updates and info. When you download the app right away, it asks you to sign up, and mobile users could’ve benefited from seeing a sample of what the app offers instead of giving away personal so fast. It’s common to see medical or health-related apps have an overload of info.

Congrats again Amber!!

It seems that this app has a lot of promise, but is instead very frustrating to the user. I like the point you made about marking certain articles you’ve read as ‘read’. I know Youtube does this by having a red bar at the bottom of the video you already watched. This is super helpful as a user who doesn’t always save videos or remember if they’ve watched something.

To your point about the app seeming like the site, maybe they should just do away with the app or consolidate it and create a paid version. It sounds like there is a lot of useful information people would be willing to pay for if it was more user-friendly and presented in the right way.

Congratulations Amber!!

If I am being honest any app that has too many ads I have already deleted from my iPhone because if there is anything I cannot stand are too many ads that prevent me from actually utilizing the Application. When I decide to build a family I probably will download every app in the app store that has anything to do with expecting a child to help with tracking and information so I understand where you are coming from. Have you considered looking at app reviews? There might be an app out there with the features that you would like to have already included.