Why People Switch

December 9th, 2009

I’ve already noted why the open source or free angle isn’t as helpful at getting people to switch. As Seth Godin says:

The chances that you can top a trusted provider on the very thing the provider is trusted for are slim indeed.

Instead, you gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn’t think was so important.

This is why if you show someone a checklist of features their proprietary software has and show that the open source alternative has all of them, they probably will not be swayed. There is a cost to switching, and if they already have the proprietary one that does all those things, why switch. In fact, you have to show them the features they don’t have.

Wow Factor

It might not be something important. I’ve mentioned Disco before, a disc burning app for Mac OS X. Killer feature? Smoke blows around on your screen as it burns the disc.

With Disco we tried pushing the boundaries of interface, usability, and utter functional simplicity. Well, once you realize that Disco is emitting real time smoke as you burn, we start redefining the boundaries of progress indication. You can even blow into your microphone and the smoke will react accordingly.

Useful? Hardly. But I bought it. And I couldn’t wait to tell others about it. I didn’t lead off with things it actually did- I led off with the smoke. Don’t get me wrong- the minimalist UI was fun and easy to use. But the smoke- man that’s cool.

Don’t provide an alternative- provide a better product. What has your app got that they don’t?

Share and Enjoy:

The Basics

Here are the basic Tuxrocket Guidelines for making an app succeed. It comes down to this: act like you’re a company that a customer has purchased an app from. I don’t mean free support or anything. But provide a decent product with the kind of resources a normal human being needs.

Build a Website

Make yourself a nice website. Use a stock theme if you have to, but get a nice one. Ask for some opinions from ‘normal’ people. Plain HTML is fine. You don’t need a state of the art wiki, bugtracker, etc.

And get yourself your own domain name- host your project on SourceForge or elsewhere, but that is not a website. I’m talking top-level domain.

If you can do it, put a user forum on your site. Not for developers or hackers. For users. How to use the app. Feature requests. Help.

Use Tango Icons

Skip some of the learning curve. Use icons that users understand and don’t have to relearn for each app. Many icons are already done. Those that you need, build or find a volunteer to build them, and contribute them back to the project.

Get a Nice App Icon

Get an app icon that sums up your app and also makes it a pleasure to see your app in a user’s deskbar.

Distribute Packages

Don’t force users to build and install source code. Along with the source download, use the openSUSE Build Service to create packages for the most popular Linux distributions. And work towards getting your package included in the official distributions or repositories.

Market to Users

You need to conduct electronic warfare. Every software company out there pays people, in some cases many people, to sit around coming up with ways to appeal to users. The reason they have to do this is because they have to convince people to hand over cash for their software. You, however, probably do not have that problem. You just have to interest them enough to try your app.