This video series is our response to a question we always have when developing new apps…

How do users experience our apps the first time they download and use them?

The window you have for convincing a user your app is worth using is incredibly thin. These days the App Store has become so popular and full of good apps, that users have very high expectations when giving a new app a shot.

There are lots of good tools out there for mobile user testing. But it’s still tough to get the whole picture of how users really feel and think when they touch your app for the first time.

Enter Jackrabbit First Take.

Every week we’ll be recording the first impression of someone from the Jackrabbit team trying to preform a specific task using an app they’ve never used before.

If at any point we get frustrated or confused, we’ll simply delete the app. If we can accomplish what we set out to do, we’ll take a vote on the app – Delete or Keep?

Through our series of first takes we hope to shine some light on good and bad practices regarding user experience, and give app developers some insight into how a user who has no experience with an app would approach its core features.

Here are the inaugural 3 videos –

First Take: Yelp

In our 1st first take we tried to make Valentine’s Day reservations at a good restaurant in downtown Austin. None of us knew that Yelp even handled reservations, but it caught our attention with its’ messaging in the App Store “Get directions, make reservations, and more!”.

The filter options made it easy for us to make the booking, and we liked how Yelp didn’t ask us to log in until I had already made the decision to make the reservation.

The Verdict: KEEP

First Take: Shari’s Berries

This time around we tried to order Valentine’s Day chocolates. Shari’s Berries app icon caught our attention right away amidst the other app icons in the category, and although their core value proposition was a bit easy to miss in the App Store screenshots, promised exactly what we were looking for.

We enjoyed the interface a lot, but were a bit put off by the pricing and filtering options. There were no low price point options, and the filters didn’t seem to observably change the products displayed.

The ultimate reason we voted DELETE on this one was because we couldn’t find a strawberry arrangement within our price point, and that the app asked for lots of Facebook permissions when all we wanted to do was buy chocolates.

First Take: CleverCards

In this First Take we tried to send a Valentine’s Day eCard. We really like how CleverCards structures their in-app purchases, introducing the user to upgrade options while they’re in the midst of composing their card.

The Verdict: KEEP

Have an app you’d like us to user test? Add it in the comments below.