Fun With App Stores: Bad Forms and Error Messages

Posted by ThibautR on 13 August 2010   |   Tags: android, app stores
Comments

A few months ago, I went on an app store placement spree in preparation for the Android App Store Competition in Berlin (promise I won't mention it anymore!). The results were telling, in terms of the variance of the usability between stores, and some of the rather uninspired error messages they returned:

  • "Please provide an interesting and accurate description" -- Isn't it my right to putt something dull if I do not want people to spend time reading the description and download the app instead?
  • "Illegal characters in description! Use English and numbers only" -- Something any person with a sense of logic and group theory awareness will object to.
  • "Upload a jpg legend..." -- Which is a nice error when, in reality, the site only accepts PNGs.

I'm just finishing a new placement spree today, and when I started, I was full of hopes that things had changed. Judge for yourself by these messages I got:

  • "Password Must contain both letters and numerals" -- What if I want to use letters & symbols?
  • "I am on vacation till August 16th and won’t have access to my emails" -- So is there just one person to approve apps?
  • "Cannot publish, application name already used"-- You would think that a search for that name in the store would find you an app... think again!
  • The following 3 questions in succession on an international developer portal were somewhat puzzling:
    • "If you’re submitting an app for our new on-device App Shop client, does your app cover all of the relevant devices featuring the new client?"
    • "If you’re submitting a Java app, does it cover 80% of the ‘Top 50’ devices for the appropriate country?"
    • "If you’re submitting an app for another OS, does it cover all of the relevant devices for the appropriate country?"
  • Do you see a *  in the image below? (promise it's an exact copy paste!) All this to put your app in ...a roadmap.

Marketing assets

I already feel better smile

Feel free to share your experiences too -- where are app stores causing problems with error messages and unclear wording in their submission processes?