Even if you have made a useful mobile-application that people find compelling, its popularity may remain low for one simple reason – it’s just not convenient to use. Therefore, creating a really good UX design for a mobile-application should be a priority for designers and developers.
Even experienced users dislike applications that are complicated, have intricate navigation and poor usability – let alone an ordinary person or a potential client who, due to problems with UX, may simply switch to competitors.
Creating a good user-interface is not an easy task. Therefore, we have compiled a list of eight best practices you can tap into in order to make UX mobile-app design better.
1. One Action – One Screen
The smartphone screen is small, by most merits, and even a few additional items can overwhelm the user with too much information. Therefore, you should avoid placing all possible actions and functions on one screen, and split them into several steps instead.
Users immediately realize what is required of them when they have only two options for further action – either to take a step forward or to go back. The principle is simple: one action – one screen.
2. Navigation Must be Simple
Even the coolest features and best content will be useless if the user cannot find them. Therefore, navigation should be simple and intuitive. Use easily-recognizable elements so that the user can go from one screen to another or go back without problems.
Given the small screen size of mobile devices, the navigation menu must be designed in such a way that it does not take up too much space on the screen.
3. Adhere to Ecosystem Standards
iOS and Android unconditionally dominate the smartphone market, with almost 98% share of the market at the end of 2018. Thus, the first and most important thing to remember when creating a mobile UX is to follow the recommendations and requirements described in Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Google Material Design for Android.
If you are creating an application for a particular OS platform, you should not transfer the mechanics specific to another operating system to it. Sometimes designers manage to ignore these principles, which only jeopardizes both user experience and conversion rates.
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4. Seamless User Experience
We live in a world of information overload and multitasking. Long gone are the times when the main device for work, entertainment and Internet access was a personal computer.
Today, users rarely use only one device. A person can use your application on a smartphone, then switch to a tablet or a personal computer and vice versa. That is why one of the most important characteristics of a good UX design is to provide a quality seamless experience for the end user, regardless of the device.
5. Attention to Typography
We all use our smartphones to consume content in one way or another. And the task of displaying enough information on a small screen and in a comprehendable way is one of the main challenges faced by developers and designers of mobile applications.
The main rule: the text should be easy-to-read without the need for additional magnification. In addition to the size of the font itself, the text readability is affected by a slight increase in the letter-to-letter and inter-line spacing.
Each element on the smartphone screen should combine aesthetics and functionality. And if you are not sure, it’s better not to experiment with decorative fonts, but use the standard Helvetica Neue for iOS and Roboto for Android.
6. Color and Background as Functional Elements
The background between the interface elements and the rest of the content can be successfully used to draw attention to the important content on the screen. Skillful use of white space can really improve UX. It is an active, not a passive element of design.
Another interesting practice is the experimentation with background color solutions, which is when the background color changes depending on the user’s actions, responding to the current context.
7. Avoid Clutter and Overload
Do not overload users with excessive functionality and irrelevant information, especially if it is not absolutely necessary. “Good” is not when there are many functions, but when there are only those that are absolutely needed.
By complicating the interface and overloading the user with unnecessary information, you generate a mess that adversely affects the user experience. If you cannot limit the functionality, use the principle of “one action – one screen” already described at the beginning of this article.
The key to success is simplicity.
8. Context-oriented Design
Concentrate on solving current problems. In this regard, the personalized UX, which is one of the main trends of the 2020, helps a lot. The bottom line is to provide the user with various features and content based on his or her current actions (history of browsing and purchases) and even locations.
And personalization is not just about content. It is also about various design elements. All people are different, some have poor eyesight and need to increase the font, others prefers a dark interface instead of a light one, someone likes animation, while another would like to turn it off.
Summary
In this article, we listed the best practices of mobile UX design, which have been tested by numerous developers and designers. After all, one of the main virtues of a good application is not only its utility, but also its usability.
If you care for your audience and the impression left by using your application, strive to provide them with the best user experience by improving design and usability. This affects the popularity of the application itself, your profit, and the success of the business as a whole.
Flexibility, efficiency, and individual approach to each customer are the basic principles we are guided by in our work.
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