Best of Swiss Apps 2021 is looking for the best Swiss apps of the year
On November 3, the "Best of Swiss Apps" awards will be presented for the 9th time. In the new category "User Engagement", apps will be judged for the first time on their ability to keep their users engaged.
The call for entries for the "Best of Swiss Apps" Awards 2021 has been launched. App projects can be submitted from now until September 6, 2021. Apps and also web apps made by or for Swiss companies in the last twelve months can be submitted in one or more of the categories. Trophies in ten categories will be awarded at the Award Night on November 3, 2021 at the Aura in Zurich.
New name for "Mixed, Augmented & Virtual Reality".
Starting this year, the concepts of "Mixed, Augmented & Virtual Reality" will be combined under the term "Extended Reality", or XR for short. This designation includes not only already existing, but also future forms of immersive technologies, the organizers explain the adjustment.
New category "User Engagement
In order to achieve sustainable success with an app, it needs the necessary basic requirements: useful and innovative functionality, an easy-to-understand and consistent user experience, and an appealing and aesthetic design. But in the increasingly fierce competition for user attention, these prerequisites are no longer sufficient for success - active management of user engagement is also needed. Because the most important app metric is not the number of downloads, but the frequency of use.
Apps with outstanding user engagement are characterized by, among other things:
- Efficient and hurdle-free onboarding
- skillful and well-dosed push notifications
- meaningful in-app messaging (notifications, tutorial, coach marks)
- Motivating gamification elements (badges, games, etc.)
- interactive communication (ratings, comments, community)
- Attractive incentive and loyalty programs for app use
- A meaningful functionality tied to the purpose
- Use of device-specific functions / sensors (biometrics, gyro, temp., etc.)
Special category "Conversational UI" with Amazon Web Services
Virtual voice assistants are becoming increasingly popular - on the move, in the smart home and in a professional context. For this reason, Best of Swiss Apps is launching the special category "Conversational UI" together with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
"With our involvement in Best of Swiss Apps, we as AWS want to make a strong contribution to building the ecosystem for chatbots, voice apps and virtual assistants in this country," explains Yvonne Bettkober, General Manager at AWS Switzerland. The new category is headed by long-time jury member Stefano Mallè, Head of Technology at AWS Switzerland.
Voice skills for the Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant platforms as well as chatbots and apps with dialog-oriented user interfaces can be submitted in this category.
50 jurors decide
As part of the awards, around 50 jurors review the submitted projects in ten competition categories. Each jury evaluates the submitted projects according to various category-specific criteria developed together with experts. There are gold, silver and bronze medals up for grabs, as well as the Master of Swiss Apps, won in 2019 by Ti&m for Via Strassenabgaben.
