You would not prefer to read a book when pages are shuffled and words are unorganized, would you? Irrespective that the book might carry significant knowledge, it is useless if you cannot bring out the understanding.
The same is the case with mobile apps. With a significant shift from desktop computers to smartphones, the craze of smartphone apps has also come into the limelight. But, an app will not bring value to the user when it provides a seamless experience for its purpose.
90% of the users with a bad experience with the app never return.
So, an intuitive and user-friendly mobile experience in a smartphone app has become a compulsion rather than a choice.
The way the internet and web technology were approached a few years back has completely changed, with mobile devices taking the front row in web communication. Over the last couple of years, the use of mobile devices has only grown, leaving desktop internet access behind and replacing it with a tight 40% shift.
Earlier, we only used to see the regular desktop website scaling down to make it adapt to mobile screens. This was undoubtedly a much-narrowed approach towards something so promising and futuristic in its rights. Instead of having it this way, depending on the usage of the solution and the audience’s needs, it has to be tuned well to serve the growing mobility aspect of it by making it available as a mobile-first design. Of course, there are challenges in reaching the proper perspective of a mobile app solution for different sizes and resources supported by different mobile variants. Still, when approached correctly and with the right practices, the perfect mobile experience can be achieved.
But is it easy to develop an intuitive and user-friendly mobile experience? And if it is not, what tips can make it easy? This article will talk about the same in complete detail.
What Is a Mobile User Experience (UX)?
Fact Check: A good UX in a mobile app increases the conversion rate by more than 200%.
Before jumping directly to the tips sections, we must first understand the meaning of mobile user experience. So, a mobile user experience is an application design that helps the end users find and utilize the purposed information. For example, the mobile design of a food delivery app must be developed so that all the information, like the search bar, menu list, dish list, prices, names of restaurants, order portal, payment portal, etc., are easily accessible to the users. As per the efficient mobile user experience, all the activities and facilities must be easily accessible. The ease of use brings the user on the app again and again.
Before we move further to the details of Mobile App Design, let’s briefly look at the basics that can’t be ignored.
Also Read – Top UX UI Design Companies To Hire Across The Globe
Not to Ignore Tips When Designing a Mobile Application
1. Have Clear, Focused Content
A mobile user is mainly in a hurried state. He rushes into things, and browsing mobile content mostly comes as a part of random multitasking that goes along with many other regular things. This requires you to develop a wholly focused and sorted design that helps the user interact with it effortlessly. Further, you must keep the content minimalism rules in mind and make it as intuitive as possible to make it work smoothly and in a smooth and focused manner.
2. Keep Menus and Navigation Simple
A mobile user has different reasons and situations to act. While catering to their needs, you must consider scenarios and detail-out receptions and triggers to fetch responses out of a design. This way, you would know how to define levels to keep menus easy, navigation simple, and the design uncluttered, with ample space to communicate with the design easily on the move.
3. Create Fluid Layouts
To serve your mobile audience with evenly managed and smooth designs, you can’t focus on one dimension but must look at the pixel widths required by different mobile screens. The standard device widths range across 176, 240, 320, 360, ~480-600 (landscape), which need to be addressed when planning for mobile responsive design. You have to work on them if you don’t want to make it a mediocre fixed-break-point interface.
4. Drop the Images
Speed is the most critical performance measure for any mobile site. The kinds of images you select to put on your screens have a lot of bearing on the speed and size of your site. The least you try to implement the special effects, the better it is for the site’s load time. Avoid having images with gradient and shadow effects and use flatter, no-fancy images for your design. Learn how to use CSS to make the best of it, incorporating it right. Finally, try to make it last image-oriented, and you will be through.
5. Design for Touch
We have traveled far from the mold where we used to interact only with the keyboard and mouse and with the traditional mode of communication interfaces. It’s all Touch nowadays when we talk about mobile devices, particularly smartphones. The touch-responsive design needs to be dealt with touch pressure, capacitive inputs, and adjacent elements or gestures of the touch event across different aspects of design implementations. If you do this well, there’s nothing that will block your way toward making your design successful.
Why Mobile App UX Is Important for Your Business?
According to the facts, a general ROI for a good UX investment is around 9,900%. A mobile app makes the services and information more accessible to customers. So, if you use a mobile application to connect to your target audience, you would not want to confuse them. A good user experience in your business’s mobile app will help the customers know about your offerings, your USP, and details about your product/services and even place an online order. At the same time, a good USP plays a significant role in converting a target audience into a loyal customer base. So, a mobile app UX is crucial as it represents the online branding of your business.
How to Design a User-friendly Mobile App: Design Tips
Long have been conversations about UX and its significance in a mobile app. The real question is, what should one do to develop an intuitive and user-friendly UX? So, the same processes exist for developing an intuitive and non-intuitive UX for mobile apps. Just some of the tips and your UX will automatically be user-friendly and the best fit for your target audience. We have listed some of the core tips that one must ensure while developing a UX for the mobile app-
Tip 1- Have a Dive into Research
Knowing about the water before getting in is always a good idea. So, research similar applications and current trends well to develop an intuitive UX and interface. Use the existing apps and list the experiences and features that you liked. Look for the reviews of users for the UX of apps on the Google Play store or any of the respective platforms.
At the same time, have a better understanding of your target audience. Knowing the target audience segment of your app will help you design the interaction actions more efficiently.
Tip 2- Ensure the Finger-accessible Tapping
Make sure the whole app screen is finger-accessible by the user. Not always do people use their phones with both hands, and if they cannot navigate the app with one hand, they will have second thoughts before opening the app.
Further, ensure the ample touch target for the interactive elements with control measures of at least 7-10 mm. Even if the screen holds multiple options, this feature will ensure separate accessibility.
Tip 3- Use OS Design Guidelines
The major app markets, Google Play Store and Apple App Store have their particular OS design guidelines regarding navigation, buttons, content layout, etc. Following the iOS guideline on the Android app, as well as vice versa, might risk the UX of the app. So, ensure you implement the native guidelines while developing the app.
Tip 4- Prioritize the Features
If you think the number of features on the screen is directly proportional to user experience, you might need to reconsider. If there is a fluff of features and options on the screen, it might create confusion for the users. So, show the features that are delivering your app’s core purpose. Put the app’s most used features on the top or in the center. At the same time, add the new features in the scrolling list or a new portal. Don’t put pressure on the eyes of the audience to search for a particular feature.
Tip 5- Make the Legible Text
Make sure the content you provide to your audience is easily readable. If the texts are too small, readers will not be able to be on the app for a long time. Ensure the font size is not smaller than 11 with a good font face. At the same time, the font size should be readable in multiple font sizes and weights (in case the user zooms in or out of the screen).
Tip 6- Reduce Clutter
Clutter can easily ruin your UX and take the user out of your application. Having a lot of buttons, links, images, and texts will complicate your app, and the user will have to put extra effort into getting the desired information. Limit the number of actions on screen and avoid random content. At the same time, keep headlines and CTA clear to use the space wisely. Don’t put extra and unnecessary colors on the page.
Tip 7- Avoid Redirects
Every user has a direct purpose for using the app. On the contrary, if your app takes them to other random links every time they click something, it may burn them out, and the app can even be deleted in the next few seconds. You might make some pennies for redirects, but it will drag your users away. Even if redirecting takes the user to some useful portal, keep them minimal. Try to provide as much information as inside the app only. After all, the user has downloaded your app to get that service via the app only and not to visit further websites and links after downloading the app.
Tip 8- Never Forget the Offline Experiences
The Internet should transfer accessibility but not limit accessibility. Ensure the app is useful in some way, even without internet connectivity. At the same time, if the entire app experience is merely online, it can be risky. So, there must be local changes, functionality, features, and information that the user can access even if the internet is temporarily unavailable. Not using your app without the internet might frustrate the user, and they might prefer a better version.
How to Improve App User Experience with Quantitative and Qualitative data
Undoubtedly, there is always room for improvement; the same is true for mobile app UX. Like the smart advertising concept, advertising agencies use customer behavior to show relevant ads to their target audience; one can use their app’s various quantitative and qualitative data to enhance the app user experience. Here are some tips that will guide you to use your app’s different qualitative and quantitative data to deliver even an enhanced UX-
Tip 1- Screen Recording
First, you need to have the data. Screen recording can be an efficient medium to gather data. With this option, you can track the overall granular behavior of the users on your app. You can even count on each tap, button interaction, and form submission by the user on the app’s interface. Such data will help you in the following ways-
- With such data, you can find out if something keeps the user most engaged during the session.
- At the same time, you will also discover the information where the users are mostly stuck.
- You will also know if buttons lack the space to feel the touch and command from the user.
- Identify both the negative and positive points. Eliminate the negative aspects and further enhance the positive ones.
Tip 2- Equip Heat Maps
Heat maps are the feature that will tell you all about user interactions. The area that is most tapped by the user will be represented with red spots, while the areas that receive the least interactions (also known as cold spots) are represented with blue. Heat maps are one of the best methods to make relevant improvements in the app in no time.
- A heat map will communicate the areas the user must tap multiple times to go to the right page.
- You will know when the user is skipping or closing a page; thus, you can improve accordingly.
- If images or icons seem interesting to the user but are interactive, you will be informed about them, and suitable actions can be taken.
- Knowing about the areas completely omitted by the user will help you save space on your User Interface.
Tip 3- Event Analysis
Event analysis is the concept where one can define the series of events taking place on the app. Here the event can be button taps, scrolling, typing, zoom in/out, or anything else. It is one of the most valuable tools as it will help you analyze the different actions, compare them, and decide upon their prominence.
- First of you can compare the event. For example, if the sign-up button receives more clicks or the demo button.
- Suppose the sign-up button is more clicked than the second one; you will give the center space to that button.
- The event analysis will help you utilize the limited space of your screen in the most efficient manner.
Tip 4- Funnel Analysis
Here, the funnel refers to a user’s complete process to complete an action. So, the funnel analysis will show you the complete process tracking where the user began and where the user had to drop off or quit for any reason. Here, if the reason for drop-off lies in any app bugs, you will learn about them and remove them as soon as possible.
- You can track the number of users who performed the actions.
- The area where the app lost the user will be identified with funnel analysis.
- The difference between the number of visitors at the start and after the process can be recorded.
- Relevant actions can be taken to minimize the difference.
Tip 5- Track the Search Query for Better Optimization
There is always a search box on the app’s interface. So, tracking users’ queries in the search box will help them know about the services and information that most users seek. The feature will help you in the following ways-
- First, it will help you know if the search box delivers a seamless user experience.
- Knowing about the major queries on your app will help you build more content on the topic.
- At the same time, you can give space to that relevant portal on the UI, so users don’t have to search for it in the bar.
- The space on UI will be significantly well-used.
Tip 6- Zoom in/out Analysis
With a good UX integration tool, you can analyze the zoom-in/out practices of the users on the app.
- It will help you know if your content is written in fonts that are too small or too large, which the users must adjust.
- Make adjustments to deliver a top-notch user experience to your target audience.
Wrapping Up
User Experience (UX) is one of the deciding factors for user engagement on your mobile application. As the name suggests, the experience you deliver to your target audience via your app is the user experience. There is a range of considerations that you need to ensure during the designing of UX. Having a smoother, intuitive, and user-friendly UX of the app significantly takes the chances of converting the target audience into loyal customers to great heights. Further, it helps you increase the user base for your app, bringing good revenue into your pocket. A seamless UX will well represent your services and business in front of the target audience, thus strengthening the online branding of your operations.
