Mobile apps for schoolchildren: combine business with pleasure
In this post I want to share with readers our personal, albeit not rich, experience in developing the Shkolnik mobile app, as well as launching it to the masses. Perhaps for start-ups, our information will be the first step on the ladder of success. But first, a little generalize what has already been produced and launched into the world by other developers.
Mobile applications for schoolchildren are created for some purpose. In most cases, these are universal applications that do not limit the user's age. Yes, I must admit that the lion's share of popular applications among schoolchildren belongs to gaming services. If we talk about the younger school audience, it is obvious that it is more controlled by the parents than the senior school link. And on mobile devices, kids, if any entertainment applications are installed, they are categorized as edutainment, which combines learning and entertainment.
Intelligent schoolchildren learn the basics of mathematics, alphabets, master foreign languages, and also develop logic and ingenuity through fascinating tasks laid down in the basis of the game. On the one hand it is interesting, on the other - useful. For the older rodents of granite science, the AppStore space and Google Play offer applications of a more narrow focus. Virtually every school subject has its own applications. In foreign languages, all sorts of text translators, dictionaries, “tutorials” of new words and grammar are available. And, for example, in mathematics, in addition to banal calculators, developers offer applications for building beautiful diagrams and graphs. There are also solutions for those students who receive additional education - all kinds of "music", "drawing", "developing". I do not want to delve into the details of the capabilities of such applications, with them, in my opinion, everything is clear. A separate direction among applications for schoolchildren can be identified as those called electronic diaries. I want to pay attention to them in the rest of the post.
Where the legs grow
The close interaction of our project “SmileS.School Card” with schools together with the rapidly growing trend of integrating the mobile industry into all spheres of life, in particular, in education, caused the birth of a mobile application for schoolchildren. Before starting to write the concept of the application, we studied the market, flipped through the market (iOS and Android) and came to the conclusion that there were a lot of narrowly focused applications for schoolchildren, but we couldn’t find something complex that offered several solutions in the same space. . And here we decided for ourselves - a new application should be comprehensive, useful and interesting.
')
This should be helpful.
Creating an application for schoolchildren, do not forget that a large part of their life is studying at school. So, the application should help in learning, be useful every day / every minute / every second. In our case, we have created a platform for keeping schedules, making homework, saving important training files (quizzes, tests, materials for the classroom hour, electronic textbooks , cheat sheets, etc.). In other words, the Shkolnik application is an electronic diary , supplemented by useful learning functions.
This should be interesting.
Considering the age of the users we are talking about, we clearly understood ourselves - you need to create such an application so that, unlike a paper diary, you don’t want to abandon it after the first filling. Therefore, we have turned the application into a mini-social network of classmates. Itself added a chat in which you can send each other private messages. And to create school news, pass an ad for the entire class or most of it, each classmate can in the class group chat. Naturally, we have not forgotten about the stickers that are so popular in various mesenzhery (for example, Viber) and which can accompany the message. To add the “wow” effect, new stickers will be timed to each significant event - the beginning and end of the school year, exams, and popular holidays.
Comprehensive Application
In order to focus our users on the "Schoolboy" and not give them a reason to switch to another application for study, we supplement the functionality of the application with interesting and useful options. So in the new versions of the application there will be sections "GDZ", "Games for two" and others.
freedom of choice
I would like to say a few more words about the user's freedom in the Shkolnik application. In our case, we did not use a scheme of the type "who first installed the application, that is the head of the class." We went the other way and provided for the possibility of creating several groups in one class, where each has its own headman and his subscribers. Cohesive classes are not always encountered, and therefore in the virtual world they also want to keep their distance. We also provided for the fact that there is a category of users who like the idea with an electronic diary, but there is no desire or time or first and second time to fill it in good faith. For this category of students there is an opportunity to become a subscriber to the page of a classmate who conscientiously maintains the sections "schedule" and "homework". Taking into account the fact that children in any business have the peculiarity of quickly catching fire and quickly extinguished, we added in the application the ability to transfer their rights to moderate the electronic diary data to another classmate. This provides users with a certain freedom and does not oblige to play the role of moderator for life.
Simple and tasteful
The simple name "Schoolboy" was chosen specially. And here we are lucky that it was not busy. Each novice marketer, comprehending the basics of product promotion, knows that the name plays a significant role in the perception of the product by potential users, in the formation of the first impression. Actually, science will tell you more about this "naming." Regarding mobile applications, the situation is the following - the name affects the promotion in the markets. The more it intersects with the requests by which your application will be searched, the better for you.
In addition to the application name, the icon also affects the user's first impression. If in gaming applications it is possible to portray the main character, a bright character, then the situation is more complicated in relation to electronic diaries. After studying both the market, we came to the conclusion that most of the electronic diaries in their icons use typical images - paper diary , evaluation. Actually, in this situation and not pokrativish. In order to somehow stand out from the rest and at the same time not lose the essence of the application, we stopped at the version that is now - a sheet of notebook and a pencil, and a nice looking background. Simple and tasteful.
Meet on clothes
Consider further the behavior of the student in the market. Suppose the name of your application and an icon brought it to the application page in the market itself. Here he was asked to find out the description of your application and see the screenshots. And here we must remember that schoolchildren are a category of lazy users and they need to submit information briefly, vividly, with the effect of “wow”. Try in the first lines of the description to convey the very essence of the application (what will it give the user?). And also, during the description, hook the user with some positive quality of your application (for example, indicate which function in your application is unique). In the description of “Shkolnik” we immediately made it clear that our application is an electronic diary with grades and homework, and there is also a chat in it and an opportunity to solve homework with our classmates. Nothing intricate and superfluous - only the truth and the essence. Be sure to write in accessible language, without using complex concepts and terms. But the words that are familiar to their ears in the school environment can be given the right to be. "Cool", "super", "home". Children love when they speak their language. But do not overdo it.
It's time to go to the masses
When the pages of your application in the markets brought to mind, you can engage in attracting users to them. The first part of users came to us due to the interaction of the electronic journal "SmileS.School card" with the "Schoolboy" application. The children received an SMS newsletter with links to install the application and logins and passwords to log in. As a result, we received a part of the loyal audience, who had a filled electronic diary in their hands. Other users needed to be attracted by advertising. For ourselves, we have outlined an annual action plan to reach our audience, but we will tell you what we will get as a result in our next posts.
Mobile applications for schoolchildren are created for some purpose. In most cases, these are universal applications that do not limit the user's age. Yes, I must admit that the lion's share of popular applications among schoolchildren belongs to gaming services. If we talk about the younger school audience, it is obvious that it is more controlled by the parents than the senior school link. And on mobile devices, kids, if any entertainment applications are installed, they are categorized as edutainment, which combines learning and entertainment.
Intelligent schoolchildren learn the basics of mathematics, alphabets, master foreign languages, and also develop logic and ingenuity through fascinating tasks laid down in the basis of the game. On the one hand it is interesting, on the other - useful. For the older rodents of granite science, the AppStore space and Google Play offer applications of a more narrow focus. Virtually every school subject has its own applications. In foreign languages, all sorts of text translators, dictionaries, “tutorials” of new words and grammar are available. And, for example, in mathematics, in addition to banal calculators, developers offer applications for building beautiful diagrams and graphs. There are also solutions for those students who receive additional education - all kinds of "music", "drawing", "developing". I do not want to delve into the details of the capabilities of such applications, with them, in my opinion, everything is clear. A separate direction among applications for schoolchildren can be identified as those called electronic diaries. I want to pay attention to them in the rest of the post.
Where the legs grow
The close interaction of our project “SmileS.School Card” with schools together with the rapidly growing trend of integrating the mobile industry into all spheres of life, in particular, in education, caused the birth of a mobile application for schoolchildren. Before starting to write the concept of the application, we studied the market, flipped through the market (iOS and Android) and came to the conclusion that there were a lot of narrowly focused applications for schoolchildren, but we couldn’t find something complex that offered several solutions in the same space. . And here we decided for ourselves - a new application should be comprehensive, useful and interesting.
')
This should be helpful.
Creating an application for schoolchildren, do not forget that a large part of their life is studying at school. So, the application should help in learning, be useful every day / every minute / every second. In our case, we have created a platform for keeping schedules, making homework, saving important training files (quizzes, tests, materials for the classroom hour, electronic textbooks , cheat sheets, etc.). In other words, the Shkolnik application is an electronic diary , supplemented by useful learning functions.
This should be interesting.
Considering the age of the users we are talking about, we clearly understood ourselves - you need to create such an application so that, unlike a paper diary, you don’t want to abandon it after the first filling. Therefore, we have turned the application into a mini-social network of classmates. Itself added a chat in which you can send each other private messages. And to create school news, pass an ad for the entire class or most of it, each classmate can in the class group chat. Naturally, we have not forgotten about the stickers that are so popular in various mesenzhery (for example, Viber) and which can accompany the message. To add the “wow” effect, new stickers will be timed to each significant event - the beginning and end of the school year, exams, and popular holidays.
Comprehensive Application
In order to focus our users on the "Schoolboy" and not give them a reason to switch to another application for study, we supplement the functionality of the application with interesting and useful options. So in the new versions of the application there will be sections "GDZ", "Games for two" and others.
freedom of choice
I would like to say a few more words about the user's freedom in the Shkolnik application. In our case, we did not use a scheme of the type "who first installed the application, that is the head of the class." We went the other way and provided for the possibility of creating several groups in one class, where each has its own headman and his subscribers. Cohesive classes are not always encountered, and therefore in the virtual world they also want to keep their distance. We also provided for the fact that there is a category of users who like the idea with an electronic diary, but there is no desire or time or first and second time to fill it in good faith. For this category of students there is an opportunity to become a subscriber to the page of a classmate who conscientiously maintains the sections "schedule" and "homework". Taking into account the fact that children in any business have the peculiarity of quickly catching fire and quickly extinguished, we added in the application the ability to transfer their rights to moderate the electronic diary data to another classmate. This provides users with a certain freedom and does not oblige to play the role of moderator for life.
Simple and tasteful
The simple name "Schoolboy" was chosen specially. And here we are lucky that it was not busy. Each novice marketer, comprehending the basics of product promotion, knows that the name plays a significant role in the perception of the product by potential users, in the formation of the first impression. Actually, science will tell you more about this "naming." Regarding mobile applications, the situation is the following - the name affects the promotion in the markets. The more it intersects with the requests by which your application will be searched, the better for you.
In addition to the application name, the icon also affects the user's first impression. If in gaming applications it is possible to portray the main character, a bright character, then the situation is more complicated in relation to electronic diaries. After studying both the market, we came to the conclusion that most of the electronic diaries in their icons use typical images - paper diary , evaluation. Actually, in this situation and not pokrativish. In order to somehow stand out from the rest and at the same time not lose the essence of the application, we stopped at the version that is now - a sheet of notebook and a pencil, and a nice looking background. Simple and tasteful.
Meet on clothes
Consider further the behavior of the student in the market. Suppose the name of your application and an icon brought it to the application page in the market itself. Here he was asked to find out the description of your application and see the screenshots. And here we must remember that schoolchildren are a category of lazy users and they need to submit information briefly, vividly, with the effect of “wow”. Try in the first lines of the description to convey the very essence of the application (what will it give the user?). And also, during the description, hook the user with some positive quality of your application (for example, indicate which function in your application is unique). In the description of “Shkolnik” we immediately made it clear that our application is an electronic diary with grades and homework, and there is also a chat in it and an opportunity to solve homework with our classmates. Nothing intricate and superfluous - only the truth and the essence. Be sure to write in accessible language, without using complex concepts and terms. But the words that are familiar to their ears in the school environment can be given the right to be. "Cool", "super", "home". Children love when they speak their language. But do not overdo it.
It's time to go to the masses
When the pages of your application in the markets brought to mind, you can engage in attracting users to them. The first part of users came to us due to the interaction of the electronic journal "SmileS.School card" with the "Schoolboy" application. The children received an SMS newsletter with links to install the application and logins and passwords to log in. As a result, we received a part of the loyal audience, who had a filled electronic diary in their hands. Other users needed to be attracted by advertising. For ourselves, we have outlined an annual action plan to reach our audience, but we will tell you what we will get as a result in our next posts.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/366135/
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