One of the biggest roadblocks to developing the killer app is deciding which added features to pick. Here are four options that will help you find the way.
In the branded desktop space, simply pushing promotional offers isn't enough to keep your brand perpetually in front of your audience. You need that "killer app," that one piece of additional timely, convenient content that fits so well with your audience's lifestyle that they wouldn't dare give it up. It's this extra bit that keeps people interacting with your brand as much as 30 times a week.
This is the point at which many brand managers feel overwhelmed by the possibilities. Do we add an MP3 player? A video viewer? A game? A branded chat client? While there aren't any easy answers, here are a few ways to approach identifying the "killer app" for clients:
User personas
Creating good personas is the single most important and most distained part of the process. In short, personas are fictional in-depth representations of your user groups. One glance at the long worksheet usually produces a chorus of groans; mostly because it's long and because branding professionals feel like they already know all the answers.
The truth is, understanding the ins and outs of your primary users opens extraordinary insight into what their lives are like and what's missing. Usually political arguments about interface suddenly disappear because it becomes very clear what your prototypical users need and want.
Creating user personas not only clarifies your own vision of your audience, it helps you design for their lifestyle, create desktop applications they desire, and it shortens your time to market. In creating the desktop "killer app" nothing beats personas, and it will be some of the best time you ever spent on your brand.
Look at portal popularity
One nice feature for users and brands is the widget gallery made available by Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, which all offer lists of their widgets. Apple and Microsoft will even show you widgets by popularity.
These galleries offer branding professionals immediate insight into what's hot, regardless of brand association. It's a great way to ballpark the sentiment of the entire branded desktop application audience and get a feel for the additional "killer" content that will add to your brand's equity, utility and will be a hit with your users.
Review your own computing wish list
One often overlooked aspect to branded desktop applications is that they can be used to control or display computer functions such as organizing files, searching drives or converting Word documents into PDF. In fact, any frequently repeated computing task can be automated for the convenience of your audience.
Think for a moment about your biggest computer hassles during the workday. How valuable would it be if a brand offered you a convenient way to convert that process into a single click?
You're not alone in a vast universe
One of the biggest roadblocks to developing that killer app is the crisis of which added features to pick. But you are not alone. Even in this nascent technology, there are a few quality partners who can help you weed out the fads from the facts and then apply that knowledge in an irresistibly usable interface.
Simply start with an understanding of exactly who will be using your widget, check that understanding in the mirror of existing widgets and the common tasks you can re-brand. Now you're on your way from an overwhelming array of options to a branded desktop application that delivers for your users, and your brand.
Michael Leis is VP of Publishing Dynamics. Read full bio.