OUTSTANDING APP DESIGN: HOW TO GET WHAT YOU NEED

When speaking about a good design, we mean something aesthetic and user-friendly.?Application design?is the visual presentation of the product tailored particularly to user behavior. It covers both an appealing image and ease of use. When it comes to the mobile app or web design, it combines two features – User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI). Though they are closely interrelated and quite similar, they should not be confused.

Mobile platform design vs Website design

Before designing the application, it is essential to understand for what platform it will be developed. Basically, there are two types of designs – mobile apps and websites. So, what is the difference between them, if any? Let’s look at it from two sides – UI and UX.?

The contextual organization of the mobile app and website will be slightly different. In terms of User Experience, the key difference is in user expectations and demands. Website users need sound and diverse experiences. They want to be able to do many things, to have a choice of actions, to find various figures and data, to watch scroll telling, etc. Mobile app users primarily need high speed for doing specific activities and adequate external integration to simplify the interaction process and reach their final goals, such as buying tickets, booking a hotel room, or ordering their favorite dishes.??

Nowadays, most website developers tend to do it mobile-responsive, but still a considerable number of websites are built only with a desktop approach. In terms of UI, the screen size is the main issue. A UI designer has to think about how to display the web product equally on various screen sizes of devices. A significant number of mobile apps are designed by implementing basic responsive resizing features. Their screen sizes vary according to the types and models of devices.?

Crucial steps towards an unsurpassed app design?

Working on app design is mostly?the same in any web development company and should comprise the basic steps. They are the mainstay of the successful implementation of the project and obtaining the final application you have demanded.

Step 1. Preliminary preparations

Before you turn to professionals for help, pay attention and get answers to crucial questions regarding your project.?

Question 1:?What is the main goal you are trying to achieve while developing this application? If your goal is blurred and you do not fully comprehend what you want to get, it will be impossible to create a product of a high quality or even complete the development.?

Question 2:?How much time are you ready to allocate for designing an app with optimal usability features? Time is one of the most crucial factors in any developing process. When you have a clear idea and understanding of all key features, a specialist will easily list all the stages with the time frame for their implementation, indicating the minimum and maximum deadlines for completing a specific task. It will take additional time if you want to add or change something in your work. And in the case of a limited time frame, you will have some problems. That is why you should precisely indicate the time you are counting on with a small margin for force majeure situations.

Question 3:?What platforms will you build and deploy your application to? As we have already written, various platforms have unique features influencing app operation and design.?

Step 2. Thorough analysis

Before starting any projects, you must understand why you have decided to do it, what your intentions are, and what market you are planning to conquer. So, you should conduct a thorough market analysis and examination of your competitors’ products with similar functionalities. Such actions simplify the developing process and enable software development?companies to introduce a solution that is one or more steps ahead of its opponents. Besides, it helps to get a picture of the product’s business logic and quickly comprehend your requirements.???

Step 3. The target group identification?

A target group is a specified group of people who will use your application. You must have the following information: their needs and beliefs, geographical peculiarities, demographic features, preferences and dislikes, things that make them worry, and others. To do it, you can find and read reviews on your competitors’ apps. You can read what users like and dislike about their products and avoid mistakes.?

Step 4. Application flow and wireframes

The design of your app’s visual appearance and functionality starts after determining its structure and how users will control the workflow. The function of wireframes is to demonstrate how all screens will be connected and what elements they will include without adding any content such as fonts, colors, visuals, etc.?Thus, they reflect the app’s logic without distracting elements and include page layout designs, app layout designs, and navigation elements.

Step 5. The design concept and prototypes

Based on the data retrieved from the analysis, a company will provide you with one or two visual screens reflecting the future style and user flow of the solution they are going to develop. They usually include key design components and their location in the product. Powercode professionals suggest using the same tools while designing the application and its wireframes. It will also be helpful to enable the annotation function when working with wireframes, allowing all team members to find detailed information on their tasks.?

Application Design Clues?

When users just start interacting with your application, the first thing they pay attention to is a visual picture, whether they like or not what they see.?Visual assets ?are used by more than 67% of digital marketers to present the content that is required. Therefore, when creating a visually appealing design, the Powercode team advises focusing on the following:

The color scheme of the app demands careful consideration. The right palette can significantly strengthen your brand awareness and increase the effectiveness of UX due to the colors’ ability to affect the moods and behavior of people. While working with colors, always consider how they serve the main goal and whether they convey ideas correctly. The color choice also depends on the design you are working with, whether it is a mobile app or a web. The first type emphasizes functions and features, while the second – aesthetic perception.?

The year 2022?has identified three primary color shades and tones schemes to be used in designing apps:

1. Combination of bold and neutral colors to make the UI look more dynamic and energetic.?
2. Simplicity of monochrome shades with one dominant to catch the viewer’s attention.??
3. Implementation of Pantone 17-3938 Very Peri, the color of the year, into the web and mobile app designs. It symbolizes confidence and positiveness. Being used correctly, it can incorporate notes of clarity and strong emphasis into your solution.?

Your app’s color should complement the design and not get lost in it. When choosing it, always consider the target audience, the main goals of the product, and its harmony with the overall theme.

When you develop a website, it should transform responsively at all screen resolutions on different platforms and browsers. It can start from the smallest 360×640 and end with the biggest 1920×1080. The screen sizes of iOS and Android mobile apps are various and numerous. It becomes necessary to resize the app for specific devices. To simplify the working process, Layout constraints enable design specialists to set UI elements at a given interval, no matter what issues you have with the screen size.?

Layout constraints are the perfect tool to provide responsive UI design that performs according to the environment. It enhances and widens your brand recognition and business reputation. You get a consistent UI/UX experience for various screen sizes by dynamically changing the interface depending on external or internal modifications.?

Typography is the intermediary between your app, its content, and the user. Through it, a strong connection with your audience is established, or any further interaction is torn. Optimizing typography will help improve overall graphic balance and its particular elements, such as readability, use frequency, and accessibility.

To clearly and accurately convey the value of your brand, you must limit the number of fonts used in the design and choose the right combinations. It is better to use color contrast so that the text and background do not blend. We also do not recommend using long lines and minimizing the line spacing, which greatly complicates the reading process.?

Make sure your typography highlights and does not obscure or overload your content.

Contrast is an effective tool for drawing users’ attention to certain objects. It is crucial for building intuitive navigation and usability of the app. You should always remove visual noise and unnecessary information while stressing significant elements.?

Create contrast through colours, shapes, sizes of elements, their arrangement, and orientation. It enhances solid visual hierarchy, adds your zest, improves readability, and contributes to the person’s features of perception. Adjusting the font size or changing the component’s color increases visual accent and weight. Your users will notice the most striking and prominent visual elements.?

Coherent navigation design is like driving on a free highway in sunny weather. You enjoy the road and clearly see where this path will lead you. Your users want the same – to understand how to move through the application and what buttons to press to get where they need to. If they lose this understanding, they will not hesitate to go to your competitors.?

Don’t try to impress users with something extraordinary or too complicated, and don’t hide the navigation at all. Good old tab bars and navigation drawers will suit you perfectly. To increase usability, our team advises you to separate the navigation from the content, avoid, if possible, drop-down menus, make your labels more informative, never adjust navigation design only to the homepage, and, of course, keep consistency. It should be consistent throughout the application design.

Icons, a fundamental element of modern interfaces, should not be underestimated. This is especially true for mobile devices, where they are equated to buttons. You have to choose the appropriate symbol which conveys the component’s meaning unmistakably and preserves the unity of the whole app’s style. The icons of the mobile devices should be not only visually appealing but also informative and self-explanatory. In terms of execution, it would be better to outline or fill them using the same line thickness.?

Recently, motion graphics have been significantly ahead of static. We explain it for several reasons, but the crucial one is that it is more robust and diverse. A few seconds is enough to demonstrate complex diagrams or concepts. Besides, any boring content can be displayed engagingly and memorably. It enhances the User Experience and makes the user’s interaction with the application more straightforward and understandable, allowing it to keep their attention. Also, animation helps focus on the particular element or application block you need. Brand awareness can also be increased through motion graphics more quickly. But we don’t advise you to get too carried away with it and use too many of these elements. It can cause user backlash or simply turn the application into a funny, exciting toy and not a functional product.

Final thoughts

We know how challenging it can be to understand what you need and how to develop the exceptional design of your application. Thus, our friendly team of dedicated professionals prepared these simple but valuable hints to facilitate your process of creating a better User Experience and User Interface design.? Just contact us (link is bellow)