Analyze Technology
When you design a new technology, you cannot predict exactly how people will use it—tomorrow or in a hundred years. The unintended consequences of a computing innovation can be wonderful or horrible. As an app developer, you can mitigate these issues by applying the techniques you’ve learned in this course, such as examining for bias and working with a diverse team. Even so, you can’t plan for every way people will use your app.
What will you do when it’s used in ways you didn’t anticipate? What plans might you make to be ready for the unintended consequences—both positive and negative—of releasing your app into the world? (Here’s a hint: Don’t try to predict precisely what might happen with your app; instead, think in terms of conversation, diversity, law, and strategy.)
When people think globally, they challenge their views. Thinking globally helps people appreciate the diversity of experiences, use cases, and opportunities that arise when they share their innovations on a world stage. One significant variable across individuals, groups, regions, and countries is access to the internet and to connected devices. Known as the digital divide, these variations could be due to socioeconomic, geographic, or demographic differences.
Analyze this:
Examine your internet access.
Visit the OECD website to see where your home country falls in terms of internet access. Compare it to others.
- Why do you imagine different places have such drastically different levels of internet access?
- Do you think regions with limited internet access would also have limited access to other technology innovations?
Identify some resources you can use to find other examples of the digital divide. Analyze the ways that variations between regions can affect equity and influence—whether at a global or local level.
For example, a region that has easy access to internet and cutting-edge technologies may enable farms to use water more efficiently, maximizing their yield. Another farm in a less-connected area may be dependent on human-managed irrigation systems, which are subject to failure. In this comparison, the impacts of access can have serious consequences on the population.
Individuals, organizations, and governments all play a role in the digital divide. Individuals can vote for or against policies and politicians that would advance technology or improve infrastructure. Some organizations try to overcome the digital divide through philanthropy, while others perpetuate it through ignorance or through actions influenced by short-term thinking.
Governmental corruption can impact the decision-making process—for example, by awarding a bid to a company that doesn’t use ethical or sustainable practices. Even if everyone involved is making the best-possible decisions, sometimes the system itself can bias technology towards deepening the divide, rather than bridging it.
Think Like a Developer
As an app designer, you should consider audiences on both sides of the digital divide. By paying attention to this issue, you may be able to mitigate negative impacts—and maybe empower people with limited access to digital technologies.
Consider this:
Imagine that you’ve been asked to develop the quiz app into an assessment app for iPad.
The assessment app you design is brilliant (of course!) and drastically reduces grading errors, increases the speed with which students receive their grades, and enables school districts to target resources at those most in need. Sounds great, right?
But are all students’ experiences of the app the same? Even if all students could access a device on test day, how might their experiences and achievement differ based on their access to digital technologies at school and at home?
What could you build into the app design to bridge that divide—and create a fairer, more inclusive app?
Try this:
Consider diverse audiences.
You’ve tested your app for fairness and inclusion a number of times, but you’ve probably only considered local audiences. Now imagine your app has been so successful at launch that it will be used by people all over the country—or even around the world.
- Who will benefit from your app in its current form?
- Who will struggle to use your app or make the most of all its functionality? For example, does your app depend on consistent high-speed internet connections?
- Would that pose a problem for users with limited internet connectivity?
- Does your app rely on new (expensive) technologies not included in many older or entry-level device models?
Plan a new version of your app that helps bridge the digital divide.
Plan and Build
If you want your app to succeed, it’s not enough to have a great design. You’ll also need to tell people about it. Marketing is all about finding the people who’ll want your app, as well as those who’ll champion it—and communicating your vision to them.
One form of marketing is a pitch. A pitch typically includes a demo of your app prototype and a presentation that showcases the full plan and the thinking behind your app. Your pitch should include an explanation of why your app is a valuable addition to the market, and possibly why it should be selected over competing apps.
Unless you’re creating an app just for the fun of it, you’ll want to consider how it will generate income. There are various funding models for apps: you can charge per download, sell subscription plans, offer in-app purchases, or display in-app ads. But there are other sources of revenue as well.
The data your app gathers and generates can be valuable to you and to others. For example, if you create a multiplayer game that requires users to interact with a real-world environment, you’ll likely need to know their locations. Local businesses might be willing to pay you for access to that data—as it could determine when your users are close by.
Other kinds of non-PII data, such as how often a user views an image or plays a song, or the titles of the articles they read, could also provide valuable insights about the popularity of content.
Plan this:
Experiment with ideas for a revenue plan for your app, and make notes for your pitch.
Before you commit to a revenue plan, however, make sure to consider your users’ rights and privacy. For example, will users know their data may be sold? Can other entities, such as law enforcement, purchase this data in order to learn more about users, or to track them? Even if a revenue stream is legal, it may not be an ethical choice.
Recall the list of the four guidelines regarding user privacy that Apple recommends for all app developers:
- Request consent when your app needs personal data.
- Be transparent about how personal data will be used.
- Give the user control over their personal data and protect the personal data you collect.
- Use the minimum amount of personal data required.
Build this:
Draft a list of talking points for your pitch.
Consider your audience and their interests as you build out each point. Begin with the problem you’re trying to solve and a short description of how your app will make a difference. Be sure to highlight key points from your app specs and to note features you’ll want to emphasize.
Create a demo script that shows off your app’s key features. Determine whether you’ll be presenting your demo in person or presenting a screencast with a voiceover—and design your script accordingly.
Remember to think beyond simply building and publishing your app to distributing and marketing it. Imagine global distribution and include ways to reach target demographics worldwide. Consider variables that would impact how well your product will work in different markets.
If you like, create a Keynote presentation to support your pitch. Keep the slides simple, and be sure the style matches your app.
Review and Iterate
Once you’ve identified the talking points for your pitch, determine a list of likely questions from the audience. Your answers should cater to different audience members’ concerns, so be prepared with multiple answers to each question. Also be prepared to address any negative perspectives that might emerge during your initial presentation. In particular, speak to how you plan to bridge the digital divide and to the ethics of your revenue plan.
Be explicit about the ways your app brings about positive impacts, while minimizing potential negative impacts. And talk about your plans for when unanticipated consequences arise.
Test this:
Get feedback.
It’s a good idea to rehearse your entire pitch and to seek feedback from mentors or critical friends. Have them take on personas of members of your target audience, ask questions, and note the strengths and weaknesses of your pitch.
While you might not enjoy it, it’s also a good idea to film yourself rehearsing your pitch. Notice your body language and what it says about your passion for the project and your confidence in the app’s design.
Iterate on this:
Revise and refine.
Review your pitch in light of feedback—including self-feedback—and settle on a final script. Practice your pitch until it feels smooth and comfortable. If there are sections you stumble over repeatedly, rework them.
Even after you’ve delivered your pitch, keep on gathering feedback. Ask your audience about the presentation’s strengths and weaknesses, and continue to iterate on your vision.
And don’t forget to reflect on the app design process. There are many ways to describe the development process, but the basic phases tend to remain the same:
- Investigating and reflecting
- Designing
- Prototyping
- Testing
Reflect on the prompts and activities that helped you iterate on and improve your app idea. What would you do differently next time?
Other Considerations
When your pitch is over, the fun is just beginning! Assume you have the time and money to get started developing—now you have to plan for how you’ll manage the project. How will your developers collaborate? Perhaps they’ll use a tool like GitHub to store and share their code.
Working between teams is also crucial. How will developers and members of your nontechnical staff, such as marketers, keep each other up to date? Will they use shared documents or a shared calendar? What cloud resources support on-the-go collaboration? Why did you select the tools you’ll use to bring your teams together?
