Danielle Arad is Director of Marketing and User Experience Specialist of WalkMe.com, the world’s first interactive website guidance system. She is also chief writer and editor of UX Motel, a blog for user experience experts. Follow her @uxmotel.

There are many factors to consider when designing based on successful user experience principles for apps and software, from efficiency and functionality to marketability and ease of deployment. Over the years, as software became more complex as well as the needs of users, it has become increasingly difficult to fill out the checklist of factors to consider from inception to beta testing to launch. So much of a struggle is this that almost immediately after launch, apps and software need patches or revisions, as users find bugs and faults at an economic rate.

Every marketer knows that a campaign focused on highlighting the weaknesses of a competitor will likely hurt their own brand. The company can be perceived as a bully because instead of advertising their own product’s advantages, they point to thei

r competitor’s flaws. Because of this, the consumer might believe that company’s product does not have value if this is the approach they decided to advertise.

StartApp will be making an appearance for the next two days in New York City! Marina & Guy have traveled to the Jarvis Center in NYC for 2 days for this years
ad:tech New York conference. They are going to be attending all the awesome presentations and exhibitions that are happening.

Ad:tech NY, happening today and tomorrow, is an interactive advertising and technology conference and exhibition.
We are here to showcase the StartApp ad network, as well as explore all the amazing things that this conference has to offer.
According to ad:tech, it is the only event that covers the entire digital marketing ecosystem.

With guest speakers like Mark Cuban and amazing exhibitions planned at the
Expo Theater, this is a conference not to be missed.

We will be Pod 10 in the Mobile Marketing Zone, located near the Marketing Masters Theater. Come say hi and take home some amazing giveaways.

The battle of the year is almost drawing to a close. After three tough debates, two major political conventions and many many tours of the United States, the victor in the battle between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will be crowned.

The winner of this battle is not determined by strength or size, but by the voters. Since most voters these days have a smartphone, we scoured our searches and crunched the numbers to see if we could find something interesting. This is what we came up with.

What do you think?

The battle of the year is almost drawing to a close. After three tough debates, two major political conventions and many many tours of the United States, the victor in the battle between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will be crowned.
The winner of this battle is not determined by strength or size, but by the voters. Since most voters these days have a smartphone, we scoured our searches and crunched the numbers to see if we could find something interesting. This is what we came up with.
What do you think?
Path:

Google has announced an “Android event” on October 29th at 10am in New York City.
Google’s invitation does not clearly state what will be revealed, and leaves us all guessing, but the title “The playground is open” is probably a hint that the event may have something to do with Google Play originally named the Android Market, which is the Android apps and content marketplace. Other speculators say that this is a special event for the launch of LG Nexus smartphone or a Nexus flagship made by Sony.

According to tech blog TechCrunch, there is also a chance that Google will announce a new range of Nexus 7 tablets, perhaps with a model costing as low as $100 and another with 64GB of storage.

The event follows Apple’s iPad mini event and the launch of Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface that is taking place the same day (!) in San Francisco. Just a fluke? Probably not. Google is pushing its own hardware faster and stronger than ever before, and we cannot wait to see what Google has to show us.

The event will be broadcast live on the Android channel on Youtube.

What do you think the announcement is about? Leave a comment below!

Google has announced an “Android event” on October 29th at 10am in New York City.
Google’s invitation does not clearly state what will be revealed, and leaves us all guessing, but the title “The playground is open” is probably a hint that the event may have something to do with Google Play originally named the Android Market, which is the Android apps and content marketplace. Other speculators say that this is a special event for the launch of LG Nexus smartphone or a Nexus flagship made by Sony.

There are many reasons not to go to the gym. We could spend all day naming the most common excuses people use to skip their workouts. Or, we could give you just one amazing reason to dust off those running shoes and hit the treadmill. Of course, that reason is Android!

Life Fitness, the health and fitness equipment manufacturer, just released their next generation of treadmills, cross-trainers, and exercise bikes which are the first line of exercise equipment to be synced with the Android operating system

“Our research shows more than 95 percent of exercisers desire access to online content on equipment,” said Dan Wille, vice president of global marketing and product development for Life Fitness. “This new line of Discover open platform products gives exercisers unprecedented access to not just online content like YouTube and Facebook, but the latest fitness applications and custom entertainment. “

So why sit at home and play that new app you just downloaded, when you can play it on a 19″ screen!

During their workouts, exercisers will have access to their personal library of music, videos, apps and books as well as charging capabilities for devices like cell phones, tablets, and iPods.

The Discover also has an open API making it the first exercise equipment to open its product platform to allow developer access! Check out the video below.

What do you think? Would this treadmill get you off the computer and into the gym?

There are many reasons not to go to the gym. We could spend all day naming the most common excuses people use to skip their workouts. Or, we could give you just one amazing reason to dust off those running shoes and hit the treadmill. Of course, that reason is …

Today, Google has two reasons to celebrate. First, Google is celebrating its 14^th birthday. Though, the truth is that Google wasn’t “born” on September 27. The Web domain www.google.com was

registered in 1997, but Google officially opened it for business in September 1998. The legend says that the true date was September 7th (the day when the company was incorporated), but Google has changed the date “depending on when people feel like having cake.”
Secondly, and most important, Google’s app store, Google Play, hit 25 billion app downloads since it first launched under the name Android Market in 2008. The store currently has over 675,000 apps and games for Android-powered devices.

Being great business owners, Google decided to celebrate this amazing milestone with a little treat for the devoted Android users and are offering discounts on a number of apps. The discounts, available for 75+% off, will be available over the next five days.

Among the discounted apps users will find options from the most popular developers, such as EA and GameLoft as well as, top apps such as Angry Birds Space premium, OfficeSuite pro 6 and Draw Something.

The store is also offering special collections, such as “25 movies You Must Own,” “25 Banned Books;” “25 Albums that Changed the World” and “Our 25 Top Selling Magazines.” Each is available to users at special prices.

In the official Android blog, Google’s Jamie Rosenberg wrote: “Twenty-five billion is more than twice the distance, in miles, that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled since its launch 35 years ago. It’s the amount of time, in minutes, that have passed since some of our earliest ancestors began to set foot in Europe. And now, thanks to all of you, it’s …

They ran the fastest and farthest! Congratulations to Agustin, AAdi and Sachin- the gold medal winners of our StartApp Android developer Olympic Games.

Agustin from Argentina, the winner of the Developers 100 Meter Dash ran the fastest sprint and got the highest download number on the first day his app went live.

AAdi from India, the winner of our Developers High Jump jumped high to the sky and had the biggest increase in the percentage of SDK downloads.

Sachin from India, the winner of the Developers Marathon ran the farthest distance of all and reached the maximum amount of downloads with his apps.

All three sporty developers will receive a Google Nexus tablet, Samsung Galaxy SIII and FREE promotion on the StartApp mobile search website for an entire week. Sure feels good to be a StartApp developer!

If you didn’t win this time, don’t you worry – There is a new opportunity for you to win amazing prizes including a free trip to DroidCon London 2012 in our September “Back 2 School” promotion.

Good luck!

Google has issued an update for the Chrome browser for Android. The focus in this update is mainly security and bug fixes. Google actually paid out $750 to developers who found security issues.

According to Jay Civelli, Google’s Software Engineer,”This release strengthens Chrome for Android’s sandbox technology, which helps ensure malicious mobile websites are contained and do not impact the entire browser. This is made possible by the innovative multi-process architecture in Chrome for Android, in conjunction with Android’s User ID (UID) isolation technology. This more in-depth sandboxing capability will be automatically used for devices with Android 4.1, Jellybean.”

What is Sandbox?

Just as a real-life sandbox has walls to keep sand from spilling out, a browser sandbox builds a contained environment to keep malware and other security threats from infecting your computer. If you open a malicious web page, the browser’s sandbox prevents that malicious code from leaving the browser and installing itself to your hard drive. The malicious code therefore cannot read, alter, or further damage the data on your computer.

This update will also fix a number of bugs and is available to users with Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich and up. We hope you enjoy this update and continue to enjoy the speed, simplicity and security that Chrome is known for wherever you go.

September has finally arrived!  The air is starting to get chilly and the summer bathing suits and shorts are making way for fall sweaters and cardigans.  It also means that it’s time to go back to school.  What if your school rewarded you for your hard work not with a high grade, but an all expense paid trip to London?  Well that is exactly what StartApp School is doing!

There are three different classes in the StartApp School.  In order to be the head of the different classes, your apps need to excel in a different area.

Art

Art class welcomes all the newest apps to the school.  To get the highest grade in this class, you need to be the developer who adds the highest number of new applications to your account.  The developer with the highest amount of new applications will win a brand new Kindle Fire and a pair of Beats by Dre Headphones.

Mathematics

Pull out your calculators, and start solving for x because it’s time to put your math skills to good use.  To get the highest grade in this class, you need to have the biggest increase in percentage of StartApp’s SDK downloads.  What’s the catch?  You must have a minimum of 1000 downloads of your app on the first day of the countdown.  Just recently sign up for StartApp?  This last rule still applies, so start promoting your app!  The developer with the biggest percentage increase will receive a new HTC 1 X.

Geography

To pass this class, you need to get the largest number of downloads from the US, India and the UK.  The developer who gets the largest number of downloads will win a ticket to DroidCon London 2012 including flights, accommodation …