12 Mobile App Design Fundamentals to Enhance User Experience

With just a tap on a button, marketers can now open the door to millions of potential customers. However, the competition is fierce.

The market is flooded with competing mobile applications, each striving for supremacy. There are over 2 million apps on the Google Play store and 1.5 million on Apple’s App Store. Additionally, 23% of users drop an app after just one use. (source)

If you want to gain the spotlight and hold it, you need to leave your target audience awestruck. Only a well-designed app will do the trick.

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs

Mobile apps that fail to delight with an immersive experience and ease of use will be deleted and abandoned. Take the following user retention rate stats, which is defined as a person who uses the same app at least 11 times.

The user retention rate for apps in 2016 was only 38%

So,

62% of applications failed to retain users

If you want to dodge this dreadful fate with your mobile app development, we’re here to help with these 12 tips.

Cygnet Infotech’s 12 Designing Fundamentals

As Stefan Sagmeister, an ace graphic designer, said about designing,

“Ensure it feels like it’s made by humans, for humans.”

At Cygnet Infotech, we design a delightful user journey by focusing on six prominent design areas that include two defining fundamentals each. Here’s the first prominent design area:

Registration

Ah, the much-hated registration screen. Avoiding it is pure bliss. Unfortunately, it’s often a necessary evil.

For most apps, this is where the journey begins. The agenda here is to cut the ambiguity and make it quick and easy.

1. Have Clearly Visible Login and Register Buttons

The ideal app design will display both to avoid doubt and skepticism. As said earlier, if you can avoid registration, do it.

2. Create a Seamless Password Authentication Process

Make this easy by outwitting the regularity of sign-ins. For example, use fingerprint authentication and avoid tedious boxes.

App Navigation and Exploration

Now that the users are in, let’s explore the real estate. Ideally, the design should easily drive them towards your products and services. Pave the way with:

3. A Combination of Auto Location and Visible Manual Location

Perfect mobile app design lets the user have the ideal blend of auto location and visible manual location for their preference and convenience.

4. A Seamless App-to-Web Transition

The ideal design never startles a user while they transition from mobile to web.

In-app Search

An app must not be a maze. If a user is searching for a specific product or service, it must be a straightforward process. If the user cannot easily find what they’re looking for, the design has failed and the app will be dropped.

5. Make the Search Button Visible

Give a prominent, always-there location to an expandable search bar.

6. Have Filter and Sort Options

These greatly enhance the user experience.

Commerce and Conversions

The end of the app journey is a successful conversion gateway. Design fails not because of a lack of products, but from a lack of design expertise.

7. Provide a Comparison Feature

Responsive and insightful comparison options will help your design pass the all-important test of consumer engagement.

8. Cut out the clutter

When the user is ready for the checkout, they must not be hampered by a clutter of confusing buttons. Keep checkout subtle and simple.

Form Entry

This is the most tedious part of the user experience. However, expert design can make this an enjoyable experience.

9. Make the Form User-Friendly 

It may be hard to believe, but this can be done. Limit the necessary entry fields to the bare minimum and reduce the entry effort with an auto-moving screen to the next entry field.

10. Use the Correct keyboard for the Required Text Field

Automatically pull up the correct keyboard – QWERTY for text entries and telephone keypads for numbers.

Usability and Comprehension

Know the age of the target audience. The design must align with the intellectual level of its users.

11. Have Text labels for buttons

This will help ensure comprehension.

12. Have User-friendly Tap-targets

If tap targets are too small or there is a chaotic mess of them, you’re going to lose users. Keep them finger friendly and within thumb reach for one-handed use.

Now that You’re in the Know….

As we’ve shown, design errors can easily hide in plain sight. Be it Android or iOS app development, success lies in the details.

An app that features a robust and engaging design will increase conversions and help your company’s bottom line. Use these guidelines to help deliver the perfect UI and UX for a successful app.

If you’d like some help, Cygnet Infotech is at the ready. Let us help you design the perfect mobile app! Contact Us Today!

This article was originally published here.