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I have made a philosophy/ethics question multiplayer game for a obligatory norwegian course on all universities. App is loaded with questions you can answer alone, or against an opponent. To battle against friends, a user can sign up with their Facebook account and choose a friend that has installed the app (queries the entire signed-up user database with all the friends of the given logged-in user, and returns who has signed up with their Facebook account). What does the user expect to do with the friends that haven't installed the app? Below is an image of the situation (sorry but its only norwegian). Top section label says "Has installed the app", second says "Has not installed".

List of Facebook friends

Picture shows top section with friends that have installed, and the second section with friends that has not. It's the same list. If a user taps a friend that has installed the app, they start a game together. What do users expect when tapping a friend that has not installed? I have come up with some alternatives:

  • Show error telling that the selected user has not installed the game, cannot start game with them.
  • Ask user if they want to send a Facebook-message to the friend with link to install the app
  • Ask user if they want to post link to app on their timeline
  • Ask if user wants to send a an App install-request (type of facebook-request) to the user
  • Do not even show friends that has not installed ( might look bad first with no friends installed)
  • Show friends, but don't show if they have installed the app or not.

If anyone has any experience with apps that have this feature and take use of it in a good way, not spammy, its appreciated, or just any tip on what users expect of the app in this given situation.

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Having two lists could create difficulties in scrolling. Also it's not a good way to divide friends on those who have the game and those who have not. The reason is in what drives me to play with someone. "A-ha! Is she so clever? Let's see!". So don't build the barrier.

The better way is to display all the friends, adding clear signs of whether someone has the game or not, and order the list in appropriate way. For those who have no game, just send invite, as you suggested.

Also it's good to display players' achievements. It could drive to play, too. "I'm start with easy person, then beat smartest one".
enter image description here

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Ask to invite people first and show people with app after. You could also suggest to invite friends after a while that the user still have the same amount of friends-with-app.

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  • Interesting. Why do you think it's better to not show who has installed vs not installed?
    – bogen
    Oct 16, 2013 at 12:49
  • I completely disagree. If you ask to invite friends before ever even seeing a list then it seems like an annoyance of constantly asking to invite people before you select a friend to challenge
    – Don
    Oct 16, 2013 at 15:45

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