Creating a mobile app is a lot easier now. You can find many mobile app development companies that can quickly deliver mobile apps for any demands. But, do you think all apps can bring you success?
Reports say that almost 80% of apps fail to attract enough users. If the app isn’t user-friendly, you can’t expect users to be engaged with your apps. These tips will help you develop such user-friendly apps to strengthen your user base. So, shall we start?
Make It Simple And Responsive
The app needs to be attractive enough to catch users’ eyeballs from the get-go. But, it shouldn't be a distraction from the primary goal of the app. If the users are immediately provided with overwhelming content, they will be completely clueless as to where to go and what to do to get their needs fulfilled. They should be properly directed to their goals right away.
Adding only the essential features and buttons on all screens is one way to achieve this kind of usability in apps. But you also need to make those functions readily responsive. You can also use animations while moving from one screen to another. The main focus should be on functionality rather than the look.
Provide Consistent Interface
The users need to feel familiar and at ease with the app across all screens. If different screens have a completely distinct look and feel, it can immediately throw the users off. The same applies to all the elements of apps such as colors, texts, buttons, tabs, bars, etc.
There should be only a limited number of color combinations and complementary or analogous shades in the app. The colors should go hand in hand with other elements to make them appealing to the eyes. If the background is dark, use light colors for other items and vice versa. The practice of using a single or two complementary fonts throughout the application is also a common way to keep the designs consistent.
Make The App Scalable Across All Devices
Mobile devices of users have varied screen sizes and hardware capabilities. And the apps should look and function similarly across all these devices. otherwise, we can't achieve increased user penetration and engagements with the apps. So, in order to ensure all mobile users get the same user experience, the app should display and function consistently across all devices and screen sizes.
Keep Proper Spacing Between Elements
If there is enough spacing between various related elements of the app, users get to read and access those functions without accidental tapping. The different elements in apps such as buttons, tabs, and texts should be closely aligned to make them catchy to the eyes and easily tappable. There should be at least a single tap distance between different elements to make sure that they don't obscure one another. This technique also removes clutter in the app.
Make The App Finger-friendly
Our fingers drive all our smartphone interactions. So the comfort of our fingers plays a key role in determining the user experience of the apps. It will be a quick turn off if the apps bring strain and difficulties for our fingers. We also need to consider people's diverse vision capabilities, finger sizes, hand sizes, and dexterity, etc. So the elements should be big and perceivable enough to be easily tappable.
As we know, our thumbs drive most of our app interactions. So it's essential to keep the elements of the apps thumbs friendly. Make sure all the common and positive actions are in easy to reach ranges. And the negative actions like delete, cancel are in hard to reach zones to minimize the accidental tapping. All the interactions of the apps also should be able to handle on a single hand as well.
Make The Navigations Intelligible
App navigations are the single most component that defines the users' engagements with the app. The app should contain different buttons, texts, tabs, and other tools with visually compelling images to seamlessly navigate through the apps.
The users also shouldn't get lost in the app as to where to go to get certain things done. The bottom navigation bar is a common way to resolve this issue. The bottom navigation bar should be present in all screens of the app with the most essential buttons. So the users can quickly tap the button go to those windows at any time. The hamburger button ( 3 lines with the dropdown capability) is also an effective way to achieve this ease of use in apps.
Test Your Apps To improve The Quality
App testing is not all about testing the performance and quality of the apps. Of course, eliminating the bugs and crashing issues are an integral part of it. But we also need to check the usability of the apps thoroughly to ensure complete user satisfaction.
Besides the traditional testing methods, we also need to implement modern user acceptance testing methods like alpha testing and beta testing as well. Alpha testing is carried out in a lab environment by the employees of the same mobile app development company. But in beta testing, a remote user tests the app in the user’s natural environment to give unbiased feedback about the functionality, usability, reliability, and compatibility of the apps.
If any usability issues are found from these testing practices, we need to quickly find ways to fix and improve those issues to ensure the best user experience for app users.
Final Thoughts
These are some of the basic tips to improve your mobile app user experience. Mobile app developers need to pay extra attention to these details to ensure maximum user engagements. Hope you’ve got something valuable out of this article.