We built the Binance.US app to provide a great experience for customers looking to buy and trade crypto on the go. Learn how community feedback helped us develop a better Android app.
Today, we’re celebrating a new milestone for our Binance.US Android app, which has reached its highest-ever Play Store rating — and it’s a story that’s years in the making.
When we first launched the Binance.US app in January 2020, we set out to provide customers with a faster and more convenient way to trade crypto and manage their portfolio on the go. We focused on bringing the best parts of our web experience to iOS and Android: the incredible performance and reliability, ease-of-use, and unmatched low-fee trading experience that Binance.US is celebrated for.
A promising start
With the small team we had in 2020, we knew that maintaining a world-class web and mobile app experience would be a challenging undertaking. Unlike web apps, native mobile apps must be built for both iOS and Android, effectively creating three different products that would each require design and development resources.
As soon as we completed beta testing, we officially launched our mobile app and waited for the first wave of feedback. Early impressions from customers, while good, foreshadowed future challenges ahead. Feedback and ratings for the Android app consistently lagged behind the iOS version, with Play Store ratings at launch trailing behind by 0.5 stars.
Two years later, and this initial deficit would balloon to a nearly 1.8 star rating gap between the Android and iOS app, which amounted to a world of difference — in what was supposed to be a near-identical app with a near-identical feature set!
Finding a path forward
We knew we fell (well) short of delivering the world-class mobile experience we had set out to build. Even though we shipped well-received features like ultra low-fee crypto trading and more than quadrupled the amount of supported cryptocurrencies on our platform, Android Play Store ratings still had room for improvement.
Despite the challenges ahead, we decided to pursue a turnaround strategy in partnership with our community. We knew we could rely on their valuable feedback and guidance to chart our path forward. And we remained committed to delivering an in-app experience we could proudly stand behind.
We started by collecting countless user experiences, reviews, and stories, and compiled them into weekly feedback reports. At the same time, we engaged in focus group testing and had conversations in real-time with beginners and long-time users alike.
Finally, with data in hand, we launched a task force named ‘Save Project Android’ and embarked on the next phase of our journey.
A framework for success
We deployed a customer-centric framework to identify issues, propose changes, and use metrics and signals to ensure we were moving in the right direction. This is how our framework helped us evaluate opportunities and determine how to ship the most value to our customers’ hands:
- Identify customer needs - We listened to customer feedback to identify areas where we could improve the app to better meet their needs. Through this exercise, we learned that one of the biggest areas of opportunity was to close the feature gap between our web and mobile app platforms. By bringing in foundational features and prioritizing consistency across every touchpoint, we hoped to make customers feel more confident and at-home in our Android app.
- Develop a hypothesis - Based on our understanding of customer needs, we would develop a hypothesis for how making a change to the app would impact the end-user experience. For example, we looked at user data to pinpoint customer pain points and continuously rolled out updates and improvements to address each concern.
- Test the hypothesis - We then tested our hypothesis with A/B and user acceptance testing (UAT) to compare the performance of the changes we made with the original, stock version of the app.
- Iterate and optimize - Based on the results of our testing and analysis, we continuously test and refine our hypotheses to deliver a better experience for customers.
While we did have a successful framework in place, there were no shortcuts to success. We simply listened to customer feedback and explored opportunities with the data we had collected. In the end, it was a collective effort between our community and internal teams.
With no shortage of guidance from our customers, we ramped up testing and rolled out a slew of improvements based on both data-driven insights and intuition.
With each new release, our app ratings and feedback have steadily improved, rising from a low of 2.6 stars to 4.1 (and climbing) at the time of writing.
Building world-class experiences
While we're thrilled with the progress we've made, we know we’re not done yet. We’re still making good on our original vision to deliver a world-class mobile app experience for our customers. Thanks to their continued support and timely feedback, we’re able to create experiences that people love. If you haven’t already, we invite you to create an account and give the Binance.US app a try.
We’ve added some incredible features by popular request, like an all-new Advanced Trade interface that lets you trade crypto from as little as $1 and a smarter search engine and info pages for all of your favorite cryptocurrencies. We also introduced a convert small balances feature that allows you to easily consolidate balances under $20 to BNB, BTC, ETH, or USD. As always, we welcome you to share your thoughts with us, knowing that your input will help us provide you with the best possible crypto experience. Have suggestions? Drop us a line on Twitter — we’re always listening!
Download the Binance.US app to trade on the go: iOS | Android
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