iPhone and Palm Pre app stores: it’s the little things that count

After hundreds of hours of observing people as they use websites and mobile phones, it quickly becomes evident that friction is a major deal killer.  One extra click?  Lose a bunch of people.  Two clicks and a drop-down?  Lose another bunch.  Require that they go somewhere else and remember to do something?  Forget about it.

And that’s one of the killer features of the iPhone ecosystem: people routinely embed URLs to applications in the App Store directly into their emails and web pages.  See an app?  Interested?  One click - on your laptop or your iPhone - and you’re brought directly to that application in the App Store.

I got a “New Music Discovery Tips” email from Pandora earlier today, and the sidebar mentioned a Pandora app for the Palm Pre.  How does one get the app?

“To download the Pandora app, visit the App Catalog on your Palm Pre phone and search for Pandora.”

It might seem simple, but in one quick sentence you’ve thrown up three barriers:

1. You have to go get your Pre phone (if you’re using the laptop)

2. You have to manually find and launch the App Catalog

3. You have to search for the Pandora application, find it, and click on it

And if experience holds true, that’s enough to lose a bunch of potential users.

(Caveat: I didn’t get a chance to test the email on a Pre, to see if it provided a direct link to the store; however, examination of the email source didn’t indicate any such link)