We’re excited to announce the results for the January 2019 app mining cohort:
This month, we added a new reviewer, TryMyUI. They provided recorded user testing, so that apps can get clear feedback and see their apps being used in the wild. Check out their blog post that introduces our partnership and explains their ranking criteria. App developers will get access to view all of the user testing videos that were created for their app.
Just like we did last month, we are publishing our raw data in an effort towards transparency. I’ve added a new tab to the same spreadsheet from last month, so just view that link and click on the ‘January 2019’ tab.
Also worth noting is that this is the first month that we’ve added the ‘memory’ function to our ranking algorithm, which incorporates your previous scores when determining your final score for the month. You can learn more about that in our blog post from the algorithm designers in the section ‘Aggregation over time’.
Please feel free to discuss the results, ask questions, or provide feedback here or on Slack.
Also, a reminder that we have an open meeting around app mining on Wednesday, January 23rd at 11am PST. I hope you can join!
I am disappointed about the ranking the OI Chat as I was quite excited to connect to a network of thousands of people. Analyzing the numbers and comparing to the direct competitor I understand that
no votes on DE affected my result (-1 vs 1.1)
being first timer affected my result (0 vs 0.9)
The better score on PH (-0.3 vs -0.7) didn’t make up for the other scores. On TMUI we are about the same (-1 vs -0.9).
For chatting/messaging, I see that the desirability is low in general even though there was a challenge for decentralized messaging in early 2018. Also for decentralized solutions (that have more than one entry point) it is much harder to convince the PH community about the value of the product.
I communicated more about OI Chat than anything else. Now, I am thinking about what I should do next. Feel free to DM me or join the conversation with OI Chat or any other matrix client
I just want to clarify that being a first timer does not change your result at all. On the contrary, your score is only affected if you have a previous score.
Maybe you already understood that, but I just wanted to clarify because this is the first time we’ve used this mechanic.
Yes, it does not affect my score, but it affects my ranking.
Further, observations
@hank There is an error in the calculation of the values of TMUI. If the scores are 0, then the z-values should be -1. (Or the app should be disqualified if it is not possible to test. The issue was that OI ConvertCSV is an Android plugin and not a stand-alone app.)
Comparing Mauvel and XOR drive, I think XOR drive should have been better ranked than Mauvel, because XOR drive has more and better features, both have good UI, Mauvel did a better marketing. Is this what you want? Maybe you want to review that.
Comparing Recall, Encrypt My Photos and Travelstack (as much as possible), I see that the PH score affected Travelstack very much. Recall and Encrypt My Photos, just allow you to upload photos, travelstack allows you to upload photos and create a social network. Did travelstack just missed a “Save as Draft” button to rank above the two other photo apps?
I also submitted two new apps this time around: blockslack.io (also a chat app) and clickbox (a bookmark manager). I was pleasantly surprised to see each app get a payout seeing as they are each very early in development. I was glad to see blockslack get a higher ranking than clickbox (clickbox was really just a Hello World of Blockstack for me, whereas there is actually some complexity to blockslack).
I agree that the chat space seems to be getting saturated now. I recall thinking Stealthy was the only other one, but either I missed some others or a few popped up recently. I took my idea from this list: https://blog.blockstack.org/free-blockchain-application-ideas/ so it probably would be good to keep it updated as more dapps spin up.
How do we go about getting access to the user testing videos?
Thanks Gina, I got them shortly after making that forum post. In future iterations of app mining could we arrange to have a different set of TryMyUI instructions for multiplayer apps (e.g. chat apps). Perhaps require the tester to find a friend to test with them?
Thanks for the suggestion! In practice, it would be hard to require user testers to coordinate with others. There may be a world in which sharing the app or inviting a friend to join you on a platform like this could be a useful part of on-boarding!
