Instant Census Blog

Back to all blog posts

Are Apps Hurting The Mobile Experience?

By Elyse Desmarais on December 29, 2015


iPhone image

If you’re like me, your smart phone screen is most likely covered in apps. From social media to shopping and checking the news - you name it, I probably have an app for it. But the thing is, I don’t use more than half of them on a regular basis. I most often find myself using the core functionalities of my smart phone: texting, checking my email, and surfing the web. Unfortunately for app developers and according to recent research, I am just one of many mobile users who are not fans of using apps on a consistent basis.

A recent survey by Quixey found 49.7% of mobile users dislike using apps on their smart phones. While this percentage is quite surprising, since the biggest draw for smart phones includes their access to mobile applications, it points to the notion that many users may not actually be using apps that often. So why is this? What are the functionality and user experience flaws that are causing smart phone users to dislike using apps altogether?

A possible explanation found by Quixey’s survey is that apps are “siloed pieces of software that don’t work together seamlessly.” In other words, apps pose an extra step for mobile users to access information or tools they need to complete a task. Since users are already expressing disdain toward this required extra work, it’s clear more importance needs to be placed on offering functions that currently exist solely within apps to be accessible without the app itself.

Maxine Manafy, VP Business Development at Quixey goes on to note that since people are continually replacing tasks that used to be done on desktops or laptops on mobile phones, “it becomes even more of a priority to deliver a seamless user experience - whether it’s from the mobile web browser or from mobile apps themselves.”

Aside from a disjointed user experience, the study went on to identify other reasons why apps are unfavorable to large audiences. The findings included the following data:

  • 49.7% said they dislike using mobile apps for two reasons:

    • 26.1% said they take up storage on devices

    • 23.6% said they are slow and performance is unreliable

It’s these reasons why we developed Instant Census text message surveys to run without the use of an app and strictly through SMS messaging. Not only are our surveys accessible to anyone with a phone capable of SMS messaging (and not just smart phone users), but they make the user experience more seamless and place less fatigue on your survey respondents. Your survey respondents don’t need to download an app to access our surveys. They can simply submit their responses via text message, as if they were holding a conversation with a real, live person. It’s why our text message surveys see higher response rates and faster response times than email or phone surveys, why respondents keep responding to our surveys, and why our customers are happy with their results.

Open a new and effective door of communication with your audiences. Achieve higher response rates and faster response times on your next study with Instant Census text message surveys!

Want to learn more about our capabilities and what we do? Get in touch!

Whatever your target audience, discover how easy it is to start connecting and get results.