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User Disengagement

zerodha.tech

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Re: User Disengagement

#41

Post by rounakdatta »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #34

While zerodha is on the good side of the spectrum, I have to call out couple of claims from this post. No marketing is a half-truth at best. Their app often sends notifications about blog posts and upcoming trades (IPOs etc that user did not initiate). So much so that I had to disable notifications for the app. No ads claim is similarly bull. There are ads for various (startups?) firms who supposedly augment zerodha'…

Your idea about marketing might not be entirely correct. Sending out notifications on important announcements (could be regulation-related changes, acknowledging an outage, confirming that a trade was successful) is indeed for keeping the user better informed. Sometimes Kite also gives out notifications for new Finshots blogs - which again deeplinks to a web URL, not the app.

The "ads" you are talking of aren't really ads. They are partner startups who solve specific problems around the same financial domain. Like Sensibull, Quicko and all. I believe it's a nudge to the user to check out some of their partners (and often their invested-into startups) who happen to share similar philosophy with Zerodha.

Re: User Disengagement

#42

Post by encoderer »

Another peril with making engagement a north star kpi is that you quickly get into a local design maxima. I saw so much of this in my time at a well liked consumer tech company. It becomes almost impossible to evolve around new business requirements because the current thing has been perfectly “optimized” for “engagement”.

Here’s an example.. imagine a photo carousel with a critical button beside it that drives revenue for the business. At some point a PM spent a few months “optimizing” the photo carousel. Subsequent changes all tanked engagement on that magic button. Experiment after experiment all thrown out because they didn’t result in enough button clicks, despite huge improvements in photo experience.

Eventually I took over the team that owned those little revenue buttons and even more eventually I figured it out:

A lot of users fly through the photo carousel clicking the right-arrow very fast. At the final photo the right arrow disappeared and there was a small layout shift and it put a portion of the revenue button to where a portion of the “>” button used to be. Many many users accidentally clicked that revenue button.

You can’t a/b test yourself to PMF and organic growth, even when used appropriately it is only accurate but not precise.

Re: User Disengagement

#43

Post by JonChesterfield »

rounakdatta wrote: post #41
e3bc54b2 wrote: post #34

While zerodha is on the good side of the spectrum, I have to call out couple of claims from this post. No marketing is a half-truth at best. Their app often sends notifications about blog posts and upcoming trades (IPOs etc that user did not initiate). So much so that I had to disable notifications for the app. No ads claim is similarly bull. There are ads for various (startups?) firms who supposedly augment zerodha'…

Your idea about marketing might not be entirely correct. Sending out notifications on important announcements (could be regulation-related changes, acknowledging an outage, confirming that a trade was successful) is indeed for keeping the user better informed. Sometimes Kite also gives out notifications for new Finshots blogs - which again deeplinks to a web URL, not the app. The "ads" you are talking of aren't reall…

That sounds exactly like an ad. What's the distinction?

Re: User Disengagement

#44

Post by ant6n »

encoderer wrote: post #42

Another peril with making engagement a north star kpi is that you quickly get into a local design maxima. I saw so much of this in my time at a well liked consumer tech company. It becomes almost impossible to evolve around new business requirements because the current thing has been perfectly “optimized” for “engagement”. Here’s an example.. imagine a photo carousel with a critical button beside it that drives reven…

If u want to maximise revenue, wouldn’t it make sense to measure the revenue coming from those button clicks as well as the button clicks? Perhaps that would be more precise.

Re: User Disengagement

#45

Post by PaulHoule »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #14

I love this piece. I philosophically agree with most of it (in fact I wrote a previous HN front-pager* called Disrespectful Design). But a bunch of the advice is just not practical because of, well, human psychology. For example, there's a lot of research showing that in competitive markets, people lazily choose the product with the most visible brand (or that is most accessible, ie in your face at the shelf on the s…

It's pained me to listen to people who have elaborate ideas of promoting disengagement with their web sites (e.g. apologizing for having ads) in the context that engagement is such a precious thing because it hard to get.

If there is an "art of seduction" there is also an art of driving people away and the two are closely linked. Søren Kierkegaard wrote his notorious Diary of the Seducer to drive away his fiance Regine Olsen who never quite fell out of love with him despite Kierkegaard demonstrating what an awful person he was to come up with that text.

Re: User Disengagement

#46

Post by plinkplonk »

Zerodha built a market leading company with conservative tech choices, about 30 devs, and no VC funding. Conservatively estimated to be worth about $2 billion, last I checked.

Very hard to pull this off, especially in a market like India, with a lot of stupid money folks chasing companies with flimsy / non existent business models.

Re: User Disengagement

#47

Post by encoderer »

ant6n wrote: post #44
encoderer wrote: post #42

Another peril with making engagement a north star kpi is that you quickly get into a local design maxima. I saw so much of this in my time at a well liked consumer tech company. It becomes almost impossible to evolve around new business requirements because the current thing has been perfectly “optimized” for “engagement”. Here’s an example.. imagine a photo carousel with a critical button beside it that drives reven…

If u want to maximise revenue, wouldn’t it make sense to measure the revenue coming from those button clicks as well as the button clicks? Perhaps that would be more precise.

2-sided marketplace, revenue not directly attributable

Re: User Disengagement

#48

Post by salawat »

danuker wrote: post #29
zxienin wrote: post #6

> We charge users a fee, .. to sign up. This friction causes users without a strong intent to do financial investments to drop off. .... The mere act of signing up does not create a user. This is so obvious. It amazes me, that one needs to swim against the tide, on something as obvious as this. this is a good post.

> Choosing a financial services firm to manage one’s personal finances is a critical, long term decision. This is not true for every industry. For example, a lot of mobile games are "freemium". It might be worth offering free services to some people, in order to get them hooked. Maybe that way more end up signing up.

Ya know... I'm reminded that the only other industry that uses terms like 'users' and 'hooked' is drugs.

When did software and computing become drug dealing?

Re: User Disengagement

#49

Post by danuker »

salawat wrote: post #48
danuker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Choosing a financial services firm to manage one’s personal finances is a critical, long term decision. This is not true for every industry. For example, a lot of mobile games are "freemium". It might be worth offering free services to some people, in order to get them hooked. Maybe that way more end up signing up.

Ya know... I'm reminded that the only other industry that uses terms like 'users' and 'hooked' is drugs. When did software and computing become drug dealing?

If you ask me, it's when smartphones started outnumbering PCs. There is almost no software freedom on smartphones.

Re: User Disengagement

#50

Post by kevinh »

salawat wrote: post #48
danuker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Choosing a financial services firm to manage one’s personal finances is a critical, long term decision. This is not true for every industry. For example, a lot of mobile games are "freemium". It might be worth offering free services to some people, in order to get them hooked. Maybe that way more end up signing up.

Ya know... I'm reminded that the only other industry that uses terms like 'users' and 'hooked' is drugs. When did software and computing become drug dealing?

Hook/hooked aren't limited to drugs and software. Books, shows, songs, news articles, etc. all have hooks. They just don't use the term user because the mode of interaction is different.
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