A User Centered Approach to increase Conversion Rate in the Freemium Business Model
(2016) MAMM01 20161Ergonomics and Aerosol Technology
- Abstract
- Within the software industry it is now common to use the freemium business model; giving away the core product for free while charging for additional premium features. A risk for companies adopting the freemium business model is that the percentage of paying customers is not high enough to both subsidize all the free users and make profit for the company.
This thesis investigates how the design of the user experience can increase the conversion rate from free users to paying customers. The research was made with a user centered approach and involved four case studies (Dropbox, Skype, Evernote and Unity) to conclude how already successful products have implemented the freemium business model. Additionally, since the freemium business... (More) - Within the software industry it is now common to use the freemium business model; giving away the core product for free while charging for additional premium features. A risk for companies adopting the freemium business model is that the percentage of paying customers is not high enough to both subsidize all the free users and make profit for the company.
This thesis investigates how the design of the user experience can increase the conversion rate from free users to paying customers. The research was made with a user centered approach and involved four case studies (Dropbox, Skype, Evernote and Unity) to conclude how already successful products have implemented the freemium business model. Additionally, since the freemium business model has high predictability, an elicitation of important user metrics to track was made. The metrics can be used to make design decisions based on insight about actual user behavior.
The case studies resulted in a summary of 11 guidelines that explain how to design the user experience in order to address the challenges with the freemium business model. To concretize the guidelines and to make it easier to understand how the guidelines could be used, example designs were created. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8882827
- author
- Rama, Mergim LU and Henriksson, Petter LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MAMM01 20161
- year
- 2016
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 8882827
- date added to LUP
- 2016-06-20 10:59:15
- date last changed
- 2016-06-20 10:59:15
@misc{8882827,
abstract = {{Within the software industry it is now common to use the freemium business model; giving away the core product for free while charging for additional premium features. A risk for companies adopting the freemium business model is that the percentage of paying customers is not high enough to both subsidize all the free users and make profit for the company.
This thesis investigates how the design of the user experience can increase the conversion rate from free users to paying customers. The research was made with a user centered approach and involved four case studies (Dropbox, Skype, Evernote and Unity) to conclude how already successful products have implemented the freemium business model. Additionally, since the freemium business model has high predictability, an elicitation of important user metrics to track was made. The metrics can be used to make design decisions based on insight about actual user behavior.
The case studies resulted in a summary of 11 guidelines that explain how to design the user experience in order to address the challenges with the freemium business model. To concretize the guidelines and to make it easier to understand how the guidelines could be used, example designs were created.}},
author = {{Rama, Mergim and Henriksson, Petter}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{A User Centered Approach to increase Conversion Rate in the Freemium Business Model}},
year = {{2016}},
}