Taking advantage of users’ moods seems to be the strategy that iOS app developers are using to increase their positive ratings in the App Store.
This was revealed by a report in the Financial Times newspaper, which analyzed how developers are using behavioral psychology techniques to improve their evaluations in the Apple application store.
According to the report, people seem to be more likely to give positive ratings when they have had a good experience with the application or, even, in their personal life.
In this way, a request to rate an app is more likely to appear on screens when the user is more likely to leave a five-star review. For example, in situations like these:
- Game apps will request a rating right after you reach a high score.
- Banking apps will ask when they know it’s payday.
- A sports app will do it only when the user’s team is winning.
On the contrary, they also know when not to ask: a news app won’t do it when someone read a story about death and destruction; or when someone could not enter with your password.
Hacking the brain
Apple users are not required to proactively rate apps on the App Store.
However, with iOS 11, the Cupertino firm allowed developers to offer “in-app notices”, a mechanism that has served to evaluate the user experience.
Since then, the average has risen from 19,000 ratings in 2017 to more than 100,000 in 2019, according to Apptentive .
Apple has fought “rating farms” and “download bots” that allow you to fraudulently obtain high scores. Also, it requires developers to use a standard interface for ratings.
However, companies have the possibility to introduce brain-hacking “biases” – like congratulations on a score – to induce users to give them a better evaluation.
“The algorithms that are used are very silent. They can target you when you are euphoric, when you have a lot of dopamine, “said Saoud Khalifah, CEO of Fakespot, a service that analyzes the authenticity of reviews on the web.
Fierce competition
According to Khalifah, all actors have incentives for more positive ratings – the developer gets more installs and Apple gets more commissions.
According to Apptentive , a group that manages online reputation, going from two stars to three can increase downloads by 306 percent; while from three to four, it rises 92 percent.
They are a “lifeblood of the world of mobile applications,” he argues.
An estimated 80 percent of users are wary of an app with ratings below four stars, according to data from digital marketing company Gummicube.
Apple assured the Financial Times that its developer policies warn that any attempt to cheat the system could lead to removal of the application or expulsion from the Developer Program.
However, apparently the developers have found the formula to cheat the system without breaking the rules.