Brain Tumor App – Embedding Video In App Stores
Standing out with video at the app stores
Even fully commercial developers with big budgets struggle to make their health apps stand out from many thousands on the app stores. The UK patient organisation, the Brain Tumour Charity, stands ahead of the crowd in three ways – embedding an introductory video in an app store, being an early adopter of Apple’s privacy profiling, and linking to a clearly structured privacy policy.
Embedding video
Ideally, all health apps would have clear video demonstrations at the point of download, so that you can make a more informed choice before downloading. Although Google Play, for example, enables you to add a video at the front of an app description on its app store, not many patient groups appear to do this yet to help people understand apps they develop.
So, it was good to see a highly professional video from the UK Brain Tumour Charity at the top of the Google Play page for their patient app, BRIAN.
The charity starts the video with a very clear advocacy statement:“Around 88,000 people are living in with a brain tumour in the UK. Yet they receive only 3% of national cancer research funding. A cure can’t wait.”
The second third of the video then moves on to emphasise the importance of gathering and analysing health data on brain tumours, which you can choose to do via the app. Indeed, although BRIAN is an engaging, somewhat disarming name for an app, it stands for the charity’s research initiative:
- Brain tumouR Information and Analysis Network.
The final third moves on to how the app can help you cope with a brain tumour after diagnosis.
So, in just a minute, the video covers off clearly and with impact the charity’s advocacy aim, research initiative, and app benefits.
Structured and clear privacy policy
We reported earlier in the year about patient groups beginning to adopt Apple’s privacy policy profiling on their app store – using icons to make more transparent how an app uses data users input. The Brain Tumour Charity has completed the information required by the app store, for example, to show that:
“The following data may be collected and linked to your identity – contact info, health and fitness, user content, other data, identifiers.”
Crucially, as all these terms are ambiguous, there’s a direct link to the charity’s own privacy policy, which is much more detailed. Privacy policies are notoriously difficult to write, as it’s easy to overwhelm with legal jargon. The Brain Tumour Charity hits the balance between reaching out to a lay audience with plain English summaries, while enabling people to dive into more detail if they need it.
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