Why do users uninstall apps?

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This article is from a high-quality answer on Quora to the question "Why do users uninstall apps?", translated by Zeng Lixia, a graduate student at the School of Design, Jiangnan University

question:

What are the reasons why users might uninstall an app?

These possible causes include:

1. Apps take too long to load because most apps are not like Facebook, Evernote, etc. — I can easily find other apps to do the same thing.
2. The app crashes frequently;
3. I don’t need this app for a while - I just cleaned it up;
4. Annoying notifications;

Any other reasons to add?

Answer by Srikrishnan Ganesan:

If you want to know why users abandon/uninstall your app, the only way to find out the real reasons and key points behind the user behavior is to interview such users. Below I will divide the items into categories to help you understand.

There are three key basic features of an app that users will consider before deciding to uninstall it:

1. Availability
2. Trust
3. performance

If users think that any aspect of the experience is poor or terrible, then the APP is bound to be uninstalled by users.

If usability is considered the most important and unique of the three basic characteristics (which is rarely the case), or if the experience you get from using the app is immersive (such as gamification), users will generally lower the importance of trust and performance.

Users monitor these three parameters in various scenarios. Here is a long list of such scenarios, which users listed as reasons for abandoning the app (some cases only appear under certain environmental constraints such as low-end devices, slow network speed, etc.):

Common causes (by category)

Most of the reasons are pretty common, but some may be new insights for application developers. If you are a product manager or developer, it is best to take a minute to review the list below.

Fixing some of these causes can also help your product get better ratings and reviews on the AppStore (see my related blog post: App Ratings – A Tool to Blackmail Users?)

Usability and experience

• It seems to go against the expectations of users.
• Not highly relevant to users — low frequency of use
• Gained and missed experiences — the product sometimes solves the user’s problem, but not always (low success rate)
• Poor first-time experience
• The experience users receive does not meet the specifications
• Too many messages pushed
• Lack of offline mode
• App fatigue — getting bored with the product
• For the same function, find other apps with better experience
• Poor, outdated, or unprofessional graphics/interface (or even app icon) design
• Does not provide customized call experience (such as mute settings, turning off some notifications, etc.)
• Too many ads in use
• Forcing users to update too frequently (cannot use apps without updates)

performance

• Too much traffic (front-end/back-end traffic data consumption)
• Occupies too much CPU resources
• Power consumption block
• Too much memory
• Not smooth to use - often crashes
• Do not allow moving it to SD card (for low-end Android devices)
• Attach too many unwanted or useless files and stuff them into the gallery or other files
• Too much cached data
• Performance monitoring shows it has performance issues (battery/storage)
• Feels like it will slow down the phone performance
• The experience you get is not standard
• Loading time is too long
• Very slow experience from beginning to end
• Some features, or the app itself, may not work on certain devices

Trust

• Asking for too many permissions (or requesting unnecessary permissions)
• The registration process is too complicated
• Require social account access
• Requires authorization of too many permissions on social accounts
• Other software shows this is malware
• Send invitations to friends without the user's knowledge
• Only works well in high-speed network environment
• Give users a non-standard/non-professional/amateur feel
• When you report an issue, the developer doesn't respond in time
• The update frequency is too low (bugs and problems always exist)
• The app was reported in the news/blogs to have security/privacy issues
• When users contacted the developer, they received no response

Category-based reasons

Here are some relevant cases that can help you think about why users uninstall certain apps.

To find more specific reasons, look at some key metrics of the app and talk to users! There are some things that metrics cannot show yet - please refer to my previous blog post for details.

Productivity and business apps

• For the same demand, a higher quality APP was found
• The features you really need require payment
• Bad experience (such as data loss, rework, effort)

Content apps (music, video)

• Low frequency of content updates
• Unknown/unpredictable content updates or refreshes
• There is a gain and loss experience when searching for content (taking the music app as an example, you often can’t find the song you want to find)
• Irrelevant content (or content that no longer applies)
• Poor experience when the network is slow

Information and education apps

• Information or content that is no longer of interest or relevant to you
• The content does not meet the required standards
• Too many ads

Shopping and travel apps (often ignored rather than uninstalled)

• Failed transaction experience
• Compared with the web version, the mobile version does not seem to show all the selected content.
• Compared to the web version, the experience of comparing with other similar services is also terrible

Social Apps

• Not getting a response from the people you interact with
• Not enough value to invite friends to join
• The users have different backgrounds or speak different languages

Game Apps

• App fatigue (which may be a contributing factor here)
• Gaming addiction makes users feel guilty
• Downloading new versions or updating content prompts too frequently
• The first level is too difficult - the level gain is too frustrating (level curve)
• Difficult to pass - feels easy but is difficult to pass (level curve)
• Complete all free levels (easy)
• It consumes too much CPU or battery resources.

Local information APP

• No longer relevant (user switches location)
• Unreliable, not updated

Personalization, Themes and Widgets Apps

• Tired of the current experience, or the user has found some cooler apps
• Does not support user's habitual gestures
• A slower and slower experience

Background: For an app with millions of downloads, I have interviewed thousands of its users, and the product has serious user churn problems in the early stages. This answer is based on interactions, online research, and summaries from many users, which comes from my frequent interviews with them about their app usage experience.