Hey @AaronMorris1, thanks for your feedback.
I am 110% in favor of improving the trust signals in the Marketplace.
It’s great to hear we are heading in the right direction
My advice is to go with “clear” over “clever”.
This is some great feedback! Thank you.
Customers understand tiers.
In principle, I completely agree, and this was the approach we initially took. However, during customer interviews, we tested the idea of a tiered trust program, and most customers said they would only fully trust the highest tier.
Instead of tiers, many said they would prefer a single badge, along with individual trust signals displayed in the app listing, which would help them better identify trust areas specific to their needs. This got us to where we are today.
My concern with a tiered program, based on this customer feedback, is that apps in lower tiers would be disregarded by customers, even though partners have made significant investments to move “up the ladder” towards the highest tier.
For example, we also tested a bunch of UI concepts around how to show a tiered program… things like a signal strength indicator (like a Wi-Fi-strength icon), metalled icons (similar to the silver, gold and platinum badges we have today for the Marketplace Partner Program, although this caused confusion for customers trying to understand the difference between the two programs), and various other UI treatments.
In the majority of cases, when testing these UI concepts, customers tended to disregard apps in the lower tiers of the program over apps that weren’t in the program at all… a lower “signal strength” badge was perceived as worse than no badge at all.
The badge requirements should be as objective as possible, and all the other genuinely good ideas belong in a policy, an agreement, or something similar.
Again, great feedback and something for us to consider when we are building out the verification process.