Chapter 30. Dusting Off Dusty Users

Dusty users, or sleepers, as 37signals calls them in its Signal vs. Noise post “Waking up the sleepers,” are customers who signed up to use a Web application or service at some point, but have since all but abandoned the account. This happens when users get bored with a product, find an alternative they like better, or even just forget about an application.

I’m a dusty user for perhaps hundreds of Web applications right now. I’m sure you’ve got at least a few in your closet as well.

So what do we do about this as designers? If our goal is to keep users interested and engaged—which it is—what can we do to nudge these sleepers awake and get them moving again?

This is a question I really want to answer, but this type ...

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