Designing a mobile app with a positive user experience is no longer optional in today’s world. It’s critical to optimize your app to near-perfect levels if you want it to succeed and grow your business. It’s no longer enough to make a minimal update to a website’s design to make it mobile-friendly. This will impact not only the number of users accessing your mobile app, but also their entire customer journey experience. Customer experience design for mobile devices necessitates a deep understanding of user expectations. Users have high expectations for the websites and apps they interact with on their mobile devices.
According to Statista, mobile devices accounted for over half of all website traffic worldwide at the end of 2021. In 2023, there will be 4.3 billion smartphone users, with a sustained growth in the following years. Additionally, failing to stay up with the newest UX design trends can have an impact on your marketing activities. It is a well-known fact, for example, that having a poor user experience will have an impact on your efforts to get backlinks.
Best Practices In Mobile App Design
The following are some of the best practices users expect from app designers:
1. Design Consistency
If a design introduces new standards, they must at the very least be consistent throughout the app. Every new feature or piece of content doesn’t have to be an opportunity where you can showcase a new design concept.
While it’s important to reuse standard elements from other apps, it’s critical to have a consistent look for your mobile app. Visual consistency, external consistency and functional consistency are all examples of this key principle. Typefaces, buttons, labels and fonts must all be consistent; interactive components must function consistently throughout your app, and your design scope must be consistent across multiple platforms. Through consistency, users can apply existing knowledge when using your mobile app. Design consistency must strike a balance between the existing visual identity and avoiding aesthetic monotony. There’s a fine line between having intuitive consistency versus monotony.
2. Content Prioritisation
Content is king. It is the most important aspect of a mobile app. Content prioritisation can help simplify UI while improving UX.
A mobile app is only as good as the quality of its content. Display only the content and features which the user needs. Because of the limited space on a small screen, any new piece of content you add will overload your users. A menu should be used to access secondary content. To avoid confusing your users, menu lists, whether short or large, should feature progressive disclosure and simple wording. Use icons instead of words whenever feasible to decrease clutter.
3. Colour Customisation
Colour selection is typically a critical starting point in mobile app design. When determining which colours to use in your designs, there are numerous factors to consider, as each hue represents a particular psychological state.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the major worldwide body for internet standards, are a good place to start. To meet their 21.AA requirements, the text must have a colour contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. Your colours should be distinct from each other and convey a consistent theme. Based on the latest trends, app designs will be dominated by subtle colour contrasts. The hues that are gentle on the user’s eyes and make reading more enjoyable. Achieving the proper level of contrast is a delicate balancing act. Keep in mind that your app will be utilised in a variety of light levels and settings, and that contrast is important for usability. A suitable colour scheme can help distinguish your app from your brand, leaving a lasting impact on users.
4. Simple Navigation
It is important to know who is going to use your app so you will know how your app will be used. This is why navigation is critical, with a significant amount of gestures and motions to choose from. As a result, a user should not encounter any glitches or barriers while going through the screens.
Navigation should be easy and intuitive. As more users become attracted to your user-friendly and easy navigation, they will then be able to get the most out of your app. Decide on the navigation method you’ll utilise based on the content you plan to showcase.
5. Better Readability
Legibility and readability are terms that are used interchangeably. It means that when users look at their screen and the design of the app you created, reading and analysing your material should not be difficult for them. They shouldn’t feel compelled to reread the content in order to comprehend it. Your text’s words should be easily distinguishable.
To ensure the readability of the content, you must pay attention to aspects such as font size, spacing, alignment, and punctuation usage. One key factor to consider is font size. You don’t have to use smaller text because you have a smaller screen. For greater readability, the font size should be increased when the screen size decreases instead.
6. User Feedback
A good design keeps users informed about interpretations or actions, conditions or changes of state, and exceptions or errors that are relevant and interesting to the user due to its conciseness, clarity and familiar language to the users. Remember that your primary goal is to offer a positive user experience.
You can authenticate your ideas and analyse actual user feedback by looking at their comments on App Store or Google Play, polls inside the application or tickets received through support email. You’ll quickly learn how many flaws or lapses users have found while using your mobile application. Reliable feedback will help you decide what works and what does not.
Conclusion
The success of a mobile app is determined by only one factor: how users perceive the product. Instead of following design trends, figure out what works best for your business and target market. Users assess the simplicity of use, value, utility, and efficiency of their entire experience; usability directly contributes to how they feel about your app. When you put users first in your design practices, you gain their trust and confidence–resulting in increased revenue for your app.
