A new approach to deep linking to integrate mobile apps
Importance: For multichannel businesses actively developing mobile apps
Recommended link: Button's latest integration with Foursquare
Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, the web was built on links, but the model of linking has become flawed with the growth in use of apps. Apps are more self-contained, existing in their own little bubbles, rarely linking through to anything exterior to the apps themselves. With the exception of external ads in some cases.
In some ways this makes sense. If a given company has an app they are going to want to keep the users on their platform rather than straying elsewhere, and ideally users also benefit from a sleeker user experience without distracting links to external content. However there are also many ways in which creating ‘deep links’ between apps can be beneficial for both businesses and customers.
That is was Button was set up to achieve. In their words...
'Button promises to ‘extend rich functionality beyond the single app silo into a network of complementary apps’.
Examples of links?
Button has recently integrated Foursquare with Uber, so you can call an Uber directly to your location to get you to the spot you want to visit that you just discovered via Foursquare. A wonderfully simple link between apps that has obvious benefits for both companies involved. It will also give the user a sleeker experience as they no longer have to switch between apps and enter an address get where they want to go.
Opportunities for better app integration
Button allows complementary app integrations without all the negotiations between businesses and custom integration that would be required without it. This opens the door to a new digital environment of app linkages, which could massively improve the user experience.
Why not let your sky scanner app that you bought your plane tickets through link automatically to the app that displaces your digital boarding pass, so you don’t have to enter any details manually when you get to the airport? Why not link your online shopping apps through to your digital wallet app that tracks your spending, rather than have to input it manually post-purchase?
Having apps exist as islands, which don’t talk to each other, appears an obsolete idea when the possibilities are considered. And there are certainly many more no one has even thought of yet!
Distracting from the focused purpose of apps?
As much as there are huge and exciting opportunities for linking apps, designers and marketers should also exercise a degree of caution. There is little evidence that users will want to be taken out of the app they are using if it is not for a good reason. Apps provide a clean user experience because unlike the Internet they tend not to be littered with links to other pieces of content. You only have to look at the Google and Yahoo homepages and contrast their levels of success to realise that users are drawn to simple, user friendly interfaces rather than busy ones containing vast numbers of links to things they could theoretically find useful.
Smart Links not Spam
The beauty of Button is that it can allow app developers and marketers to defy the trend of adding more third party links to apps (often for ad revenue purposes), and instead focus on a few well thought out links to other apps which users will find useful. So as long as Button is used intelligently it provides a great opportunity for businesses to increase app usage, downloads and revenue.
Just remember that although building bridges is better than sitting on an island, you can have too much of a good thing...
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