Developing a mobile app is no trifling task. From ideation to deployment and post-deployment services after that, you will have to jump through a lot of hoops before you can become a chart-topper. And isn’t that the dream? Seeing your app rank on top of app stores, with downloads in millions and heart-warming and encouraging comments. But getting there is not as easy as you imagined. Users are incredibly picky and quick on jumping on any shortcomings that your app might have. So to survive in the tumultuous waters of smartphone app development, you will need to up your game a notch. From your app’s features to its UI and UX, everything needs to be flawless. And today we have a couple of designing tips that will help you in creating a beautiful app which will be a delight for your users to use.
Let’s dive right in then!
1. Simplicity is the Key
The first thing that you need to keep in mind is your app’s universality. There are many devices in the market, especially if we talk about Android ones, and your app needs to look amazing on all of them. So design an app which can not only support different screen sizes of different devices but can also work flawlessly on them. Not every app is as beefed up, processing wise, as some of the others. So they might have trouble running heavy apps. So you might want to take that into consideration as well. The market is deeply divided, with Android owning 88% of the market share and iOS ruling creamier 11.9% of it, it becomes essential that your app supports as many devices as it can, or you will simply lose a lot of business.
2. Be Fluid
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Every app deserves a tailor-made UX and process flow. What works for one app, might not for the other. Thus you can’t use one scheme on every app. You need to ask yourself what is the most straightforward way to use your app. Or to be more on point, you need to ask yourself what is the easiest way to use an app of that type. And once you have the answer, you need to work on that.
Always remember that overstuffing your app will be counterproductive. So don’t add too many unnecessary buttons, don’t add unrequired menus or even animation. Keep it as simple as you can because over cluttering your app will, in the end, affect the speed of your app. And a slow app will always agitate its user no matter how useful it is. Also, there are no rules that say you can’t play around with your UX a bit. Rebellious and innovative UX and UI are great ways to hook your users in early on. But again, all of it should be for the sake of simplicity.
3. Be a Visual Candy
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One set back of smartphone apps is that they do not have the ability to hold a user’s attention with text content alone. So you need to make sure that you convey as much information as you can with a lot of visual content. It is a known fact that an image holds more attention than text these days. So come up with unique visual elements in your app for various modules. The key is being creative. But again, it is very easy to overdo it. Excess is always the enemy. So don’t cram in too many photographs and don’t use weird colors that irritate a user’s eyes. He will spend a lot of time staring at your app if he likes it, and if the color palette of your app is too tacky, then chances are he will abandon it. So go easy on colors, choose a palette that soothes a watcher’s eyes.
4. Right Information, Right Time, Right Person
Every mobile app development firm understands that articulating a piece of information at the right time and in the right way is one of the fundamental factors that makes or breaks an app. An app is not like a website. On a website, your user can browse around and look for things. You can give information on the homepage; you can take help of text, images, and videos to do so. But when you develop an app, you need to think from the perspective of a user and decide the flow of your app accordingly. And more than that, channeling information as we have discussed in the above point is tough without attractive visual content, so you need to make sure that you do that properly. Also, don’t dump a lot of knowledge on your user at once because that will be severely counterproductive.
5. Trends are Friends
Trends run the world. From the fashion realm to the technology realm, trends are the engine of our civilization. So you need to keep a firm eye on the various UX trends in the market. You cannot afford to be outdated in this area. Just like you cannot afford to be outdated in the technical aspect of your app.
A great example of this is Instagram’s use of gradient background for its app. Once they did it, pretty much everyone in the market started doing it. So in the same way, you can either be the pioneer of a new trend. Or you can follow them, for the sake of your app.
Conclusion
UX is a crucial part of your app. If it is too hard to use or complicated more than it has any right to be, then the chances are users will look for other options in the market and trust us, there are many. So if you don’t want to lose your users, you need to work a little harder on your UX/UI design. It’s a fun and creative process which you shouldn’t shy away from. So let your imagination run world and juice this opportunity to the fullest.