While working at Aptoide (a third party android app store), we found that users don't engage as much as we wanted with us. We need an app that users visits multiple times per day!
Since app discovery happens outside of the App Store, let's not build "another app store".
When looking at the behavior of our users and doing user interviews we discovered that app discovery usually happened outside of the app store. A common pattern was hearing about an app from a friend, seeing it on youtube, etc.
Our explorations went different ways but in the end we wanted to capture two things learnt from our current users in Aptoide:
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And the result? TikTok meets twitch for mobile games only! As a user starts Discovery they instantly see other peoples gaming videos. They can easily swipe to get to the next video or search if they want something in particular. And more importantly, they can install the game they are watching from Google Play! (or any third party app store 😉)
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The user can quickly launch their installed games from Discovery, this was necessary in the beginning to enable users to record videos from their games.
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Swiping from the tops allows the user to quickly look through their current feed of videos and jump ahead.
Just as a user can watch other users videos, they can also record their own. The way a user can record their gaming video is easy, an overlay from Discovery sits on top of whatever game the user is playing. One tap and the recording starts. The user can then further customize their video with gifs before uploading to Discovery.
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There's tons of stuff not mentioned here, how a user could control their feed of videos, how the reactions and commenting worked, etc etc. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me ✉️