Ketan Chavda

The design is the first thing that a user notices in mobile app. If the design is not user-centric, then it fails to attract and engage the user. Many times while focussing on other things, app design gets neglected and app owners have to pay a heavy price for that. In this article, we shall know in detail why is it important to keep an unwavering focus on creating a beautiful mobile app design and step-by-step process of designing comprehensive mobile application UI design. Mobile apps have taken a prominent place in our lives. We cannot imagine our lives without mobile apps today, and we are dependent on these little software pieces for many things. But, the matter of fact is that nobody likes a mobile app that is not well designed. Hence, if you are a business owner who is thinking of developing a mobile app for your business, then you must put due emphasis on designing the best mobile app. Because without an impressive design, the customers won't be attracted to your App and it will not realize its full potential. What is Mobile App Design? Mobile app design is the science of designing mobile applications, their look and feel, the placement, colour, and the size of various buttons, which screen will come after which one. Therefore, essentially Mobile App Design is task of combining UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience). Implementation of efficient designing for mobile app can help to maximise business growth. Mobile App Design Process: Best Practice The entire process of mobile app design can be broken down into the following steps; 1. Defining the scope In this step, we shall define the scope of the app development project which will entail what needs to be done, the cost to develop Mobile app, and what you want to accomplish with the app. 2. Wireframe Then comes the wireframing stage, in which, we build the UX wireframe consisting of a blueprint of the mobile app. you can prepare the wireframe either on paper or online using various tools. 3. Prototyping In this stage, we create a low-fidelity App Prototype so that you can get an idea about how the app will actually look. 4. UI design stage Once the low fidelity design for the mobile app has been finalized, we then move on to build UI design with fonts, buttons, images, forms, and shapes. 5. Testing Once the mobile app design is ready, then along with the development team, the design team sees to it that the design is feasible. They test the app and incorporate the necessary changes in mobile app design. Mobile app design is important because it helps your mobile app idea to survive amongst millions of other apps. By fascinating your audience with a creatively designed mobile app, you will stand a better chance of succeeding in this highly competitive app market. A pleasing design of mobile application helps in keeping the audience engaged, and an engaged audience normally translates into more app downloads and better app reviews. Although the design is not your job and you can always take the help of expert mobile app designers, it is always better to know some nuances of design so that you can provide your inputs if required. Wireframes and mockups are an important part of mobile app design. Although both the terms are used interchangeably, there is a vital difference between the two. Wireframes are used to depict what goes where in the mobile app design without focusing on specific details like colours and shapes. Mockups show the design layer of the mobile app and their role is to let the UI/UX designer visualize the App's visual elements before building it. Many times it is seen that mobile app development companies skip this important stage to save cost. But understand that wireframes and mockups are an important part of mobile app design and they should not be skipped. By building a wireframe and mockups, you can visualize the App's design in a better manner. As they say, a picture is worth 1000 words. By developing wireframes, one can discuss the functionalities and structure of the App without too much focus on design details like colours and fonts. While by building mockups you can go in more detail regarding the nuances of colours and fonts. Using wireframes, the idea of the mobile App can be conveyed easily, avoiding pitfalls. It helps to create Mobile App UX Design Strategies for future-ready UI design that can give your mobile app a competitive edge. Wireframe acts as the blueprint of a well-structured app with a robust blueprint that is quicker to build, translating into money savings. Top Mobile app design guidelines to follow Human-centric Design Understand that your mobile App is going to be used by humans and there is no point of building a complex and beautiful app that is hard to use. While everybody can make complex apps, making complexity simple is one of the top design tips for your mobile business app. Minimize Cognitive load By cognitive load we mean the brainpower exerted while using an application. Humans are lazy beings and we do not like to work, period! If the mobile app design is such that it makes the user work, then forget about making the App successful. Users don't love Typing on Mobiles Professional mobile app designers and developers know that typing on a mobile screen is not a very comfortable experience and many users commit a lot of errors when they type on a small mobile screen. Hence you should keep the user input to a minimum. You should avoid unnecessary fields in forms. Whenever possible, you can use the dropdown menu in mobile applications to avoid typing. Wherever text is necessary, you can use field masking to input the text automatically. Deliver before the user Demands Anticipate the needs of the user to make the journey of the user on the App easy. You can do this by making it easy for the user to identify essential elements. Putting visual weight on important elements of mobile app design by increasing or decreasing the font weight, size, and color of these elements is one way to do it. Consistency is the Key Maintaining consistency in design is one of the primary objectives in mobile app design process. Through consistency, the idea is to eliminate confusion. The buttons, labels, and typeface should be consistent across the mobile application. All interactive elements in your application should work in a similar manner. To make the mobile app design consistent, you can follow the standard guidelines of various mobile OS platforms. For example, you can follow Apple's human interface guidelines and Google's material design guidelines to ensure that the design of your mobile app is consistent. Don't make this grave Error Errors are part and parcel of a user's engagement with the App. Sometimes the errors are due to the user and other times, due to the inherent faults in the Mobile App Design and Development. Errors do not spoil the user experience, bad error handling does. Useless error messages increase the frustration levels of users and are one of the major reasons why a user abandons the mobile app. A well-designed error message should tell the users in plain language, what went wrong and what should they do about it. S for Simplicity and S for Success Every Mobile App Designer's first priority should be to make the navigation of the app simple. Because without it, all the cool features of your App won't matter as people would not be able to find them. Understand that if it is taking too much time or effort to navigate through your App and discover its features, then there are high chances that your mobile app will prove to be a failure. Standard navigation patterns like navigation drawer for Android and tab bar for iOS should be used, as most of the users are already familiar with these navigation patterns. This will add a sense of intuitiveness to the App. Make the first time Memorable It is a well-known fact that the first experience is where it is decided, whether the user will keep your App in a distant corner of the phone or will use it regularly. To make the first-time experience great, avoid the sign-up screen, as this is the place where most of the users abandon the App. Allow the users to experience the Mobile App for a while before asking them to sign up. We all love Familiarity Some screens like search results, what's new, and getting started have become standard in all mobile apps. As users are accustomed to seeing such screens on most mobile apps, you do not need to explain to the users how to use these screens. By using familiar screens, you can make the learning curve shorter. Make Your App Responsive One of the major determinants of the success of a mobile app is its responsiveness. If the users find that your Mobile App is not responsive enough, then they will easily get frustrated with the App and ditch it in search of a better app. Here are some things that should be considered to make the mobile app responsive. Serve just enough Content You can think about loading just enough content to keep the user busy at first. Speed will be a major benefit that you will get by applying this UI design strategy to transform your Mobile App, as while the user is reading the initial content, the remaining content can be loaded in the background. Show them what's cooking In the modern digital world, most users are accustomed to blazing-fast speeds. They get easily bored and switch over to other tasks when they are presented with a blank or a static screen. The most basic thing that you can do to avoid this is to show a loading screen on mobile app which makes it clear that something is happening in the background. You can also show a progress bar to make sure that the users can get a rough idea about the time that they will need to wait. Using visual distractions By offering a visual distraction (like a wonderful natural scene) you can make the wait seem much shorter than it actually is. While designing the visual distraction for mobile app you must make sure that the distraction is such that one likes to see it again and again. Because even good visual distraction can prove to be annoying when overused. Mobile is the new playground Mobile app design should be such that the content is optimized for use on smartphones. Before you go for that beautiful calligraphy and typography, understand that if your mobile content is not legible, then the purpose of offering the content gets defeated. The font size should be greater than 16 pixels as it becomes challenging for the reader to read anything smaller than that. You should use the system's default typeface for content while designing a mobile application. For Google Android it is Roboto and for Apple iOS it is San Francisco font. It makes the font easy to read as users are already accustomed to reading these kinds of fonts in other mobile apps. One of the most basic things is to ensure high contrast between the fonts and the background. By keeping contrast high you can ensure that the readers can read the text easily even in bright sunlight. Something simple like the white background and black text still works. While designing for mobile apps, understand that we live in a world of constant interruption. Hence the App should be able to save the current state and allow its users to continue at the point where they left. Adapt Mobile App Design according to Markets The world of mobile apps is fast expanding to developing countries. The cost of owning a Smartphone is coming drastically down, with the increasing penetration of the internet and the rise of an aspiring middle class, sky's the limit for mobile apps in developing countries. Poor internet connectivity A common mistake that mobile app designers from Western countries make is that they design the App, assuming that there will be internet connectivity everywhere in the world. In developing countries, the Mobile Apps must be designed in a manner that it can seamlessly switch over from Wi-Fi to 2G/3G/4G connectivity and also work in areas with no connectivity. By allowing caching of data the top app designers can design the App to work in areas with no connectivity, by keeping the page size to a minimum they can ensure faster loading of the content. The best mobile app designers can also design separate lite modes of the mobile apps so that users on low bandwidth connections can easily use the App. Not so great Smartphones Most of the smartphones sold in developing nations are cheaper as compared to their counterparts in developed countries. Limited storage and processing power means that the mobile app design should be such that it does not hog up a lot of RAM. The skilled mobile app designers should design mobile apps that should run with older and low-end devices. If you’re in Rome design like Romans Get inspiration from locally popular mobile apps and hire mobile app developers and designers to design the App with local knowledge. Understand that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and hence the design which is popular in western nations can prove to be unpopular in emerging markets. The users will be able to relate to the Mobile Application much faster if it is designed keeping in mind the local aesthetics. Extended Read: The Importance of Market Research for Mobile App Popular Mobile app design elements Here are some basic mobile application design elements which if followed can prove to be worthwhile. Dark themes Dark themes are the new in-thing in mobile app design. The dark theme not only looks good but also helps in improving the efficiency of the mobile device by saving battery and the strain on the user's eyes is also reduced. Passwordless logins In this digital age, users usually install more apps than they can handle. It is difficult for them to remember the password of all these apps. The experienced mobile app designers will have to integrate login passwords such as facial recognition and fingerprint recognition to make the process of logging in to the mobile app more secure and hassle-free. Voice interactivity With the advent of voice-based personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, users are increasingly getting familiar with the idea of voice interaction. The expert mobile app designers can also make their App stand out from the competition by empowering it with voice-based interactions. Future proof your Mobile app design Nobody likes to use a product having an unattractive design, however good it may be. Hence you should invest some hours in building a design with which the users can relate easily. By keeping sufficient focus on the design of your mobile app, the top mobile app designers and developers will ensure that the Mobile App gets popular in no time. Originally Published Blog: Mobile App Design For Beginners: Your Complete Guide