Enterprise Gadgets: Best Practices
If you’re new to developing enterprise gadgets, it can be difficult to immediately grasp the best way to get results. Here is a list of things to think about when building enterprise gadgets. It’s still early days – how to best do some of these things will evolve over time. At the very least, this list will spark some thoughts about how best to proceed.
Hooking the user
Engage Quickly. While a user may take a chance on an unknown gadget, they will quickly remove it if no immediate value is found. The lesson to be learned is that first impressions really do matter, and it’s necessary to engage the user quickly before attention is lost. To this end, you should focus on the 30-second experience; before distracting the user with expert features or sending invites, slow down and give the user a simpler taste of what your application is about. Show value and identity by making the purpose and core features of your application absolutely clear.
Provide engaging content. If a gadget is not fun or useful, it’s gone.
Make it look good. People like to look at appealing things. If your gadget is going to be in their face all day, it better look good.
Make it sound right. The gadget must speak the language of the community that the gadget is targeted towards. If you don’t understand the community, it won’t be authentic, and the gadget won’t be viral.
Getting the user to install the gadget
Make is really easy to install. No downloads, and no more than one click - or you’re out.
Make it small. No bloat allowed. Make your content small enough to fit in to little places. Resist the temptation to reproduce full-screen applications or scenarios in gadget form.
Make it easy to adopt. Remove any obstacles that may deter a user from installing the gadget, like asking for information before they can try the gadget. There’s no better way to kill a gadget’s proliferation than to put a registration obstacle in front of it.
Make it universal. Make sure the gadget can be installed anywhere - make it available in as many containers as possible, including mobile devices.
Pre-empt security concerns. Make sure the user knows they aren’t going to be spammed, that their privacy will remain protected, etc.
Keep it simple. Gadget must be easy to use and intuitive – there is no training, tutorials or even help (beyond maybe a contextual popup) in the gadget world.
Give the user a home page. If the user doesn’t have a home page to install the gadget on, give them one (e.g. give them an iGoogle page as part of the setup options).
Keeping the user interested
Frequently update content. Update content with news, commentary, inventory, prices, schedules, etc. – whatever you can to make the gadget alive and fresh. Day-to-day changes can help to keep an application interesting and desired over time.
Make it personal. Allow the user to customize the data retrieved based on the user preferences so as to create a targeted experience. Personalization - even if it’s just the ability to add a logo or change the color of the gadget - dramatically increases loyalty to a gadget. Increasing the feeling of ownership increases a user’s desire to keep the application on their page.
Keep extending. Create more depth, offer more options based on feedback.
Nurture users. Once you get users hooked on a gadget, coddle them. Offer them incentives to stick around, and to provide their input.
Leveraging the gadget
Make every gadget a marketing opportunity. It is easy to include an unobtrusive ad in any gadget. This way, a marketing message has the potential to become part of a service that the user subscribes to willingly because it is customized to their experience rather than being an annoying or intrusive ad.
Build a relationship. By accepting your gadget on to their site, the consumer is offering to build a relationship with you. Oblige by engaging them - ask for their opinion, offer rewards and special deals. This way, you also get immediate, ongoing feedback, and further tighten the relationship with yours customer.
Build communities and make it social. By collecting information on who is installing your gadgets, and how they are customizing them, you can identify communities of interest, and build communities around those interests.
Make it viral. Make it very easy to share gadgets with others. At the very least, ensure that every gadget has a “Share” option visible.
Building the gadget
Use open standards. Standardization is starting to occur in the gadget world. If you develop an application using the OpenSocial API’s, it should be easy to make your gadget available on all the social networks that are participating in the OpenSocial standard. This greatly reduces development time, since you no longer need a ‘My Space strategy’ or ‘iGoogle strategy’.
Test your gadget in different browsers. Make sure it works properly in all the major browsers.
Phase gadgets in. Make sure a gadget works before fully promoting. Because it’s viral, if there is a problem, you are going to lose a lot of people.
Be agile. Develop quickly, release early, respond to feedback immediately. Taking extra time to do usability studies, etc. doesn’t make sense in a gadget world. Accept the fact that a widget won’t be perfect on its first release. Just get it out as quickly as possible, see if it catches on and then make adjustments as the user community provides feedback.
Building a gadget strategy
Gather user data. Gather data to help you track widget distribution, where users are viewing your widget, where it is spreading from and how people are interacting with it.
Build a portfolio of gadgets. See what hits, and dispose of the duds at your earliest convenience.
Find an effective means of distribution. While distribution platforms like the iGoogle gallery, Widgetbox, etc. can be used, they are not the best way to promote enterprise gadgets, because they are too generic. Enterprise gadgets need to be made available from a wide variety of sources specific to the organizations target audience – the company home page, the company page on Facebook, in any online communication with users (invoices, special offers, etc.). The good news is that once the user already has one of your gadgets, it is relatively easy to get them to try others – you can use the first gadget to promote more gadgets.
Related posts:
- Enterprise gadgets
- Top 10 benefits of business gadgets
- Looking forward: Enterprise gadget trends
- The gadgetization of the enterprise
- Top 10 reasons why corporations need to pay attention to gadgets
- Google gadgets now talk to each other: a GIANT step forward in the gadget revolution
- The enterprise gadget reading list
- Google Gadgets just keep on getting better…
- Gadgets - a New York Times magazine Idea of the Year
- A brief critique of Burton Groups “Google Apps in the Enterprise”
