Billions are lost by businesses due to poor mobile app UX design. All over the world, many startups go out of business due to various reasons. Here are some statistics that you should know as a businessperson.
- According to Startup Genome, 9 out of 10 startups fail
- According to research by Shikhar Ghosh, 7.5 out of 10 venture-backed startups fail.
- According to the Bureau of Labor, 2 out of 10 new businesses fail in the first year of operations.
There are various reasons behind the failure of a startup, and here are some critical user experience reasons why users abandon businesses.
- 46% of people say they would not purchase from a brand again if they had an interruptive mobile experience.
- 9 in 10 smartphone owners who describe a mobile brand experience as helpful would purchase from the brand again.
- People who have a negative brand experience on mobile are 62% less likely to purchase from that brand in the future.
- 90% of users reported they stopped using an app due to poor performance.
- 83% of people say a seamless experience across all devices is very important.
The mistake many startups commit is they start believing in the concept of mobile app UX (user experience) design and the UX designer when the ship has started to sink. Don’t do that. Mobile app user experience design is all about “knowing your users”. But it isn’t as simple as it sounds to you. User research is the critical phase of mobile app development. By doing so, you retain the luster of your mobile app. Now that we have discussed why mobile app user experience is important, let’s jump into the underlying principles of mobile app UX design.
Put the User First
The user always comes first in any design project, and in particular, the user needs are important on mobile devices. If the UX designers don’t address the mobile users’ needs, those users will look for alternatives and move to other apps or websites.
Ensure Cognitive Navigation Throughout the App
Navigation on your mobile apps needs to be more cognitive. Your users quickly need to know how to navigate around your mobile app to accomplish the desired task. You can leverage recognizable design patterns such as hamburger menus and recognizable icons such as the “home” icon for the home screen. If your users couldn’t figure out a way to navigate through the mobile app, they will eventually switch to other mobile apps to look for simpler solutions.
Create a Seamless Experience Across Devices
With omnichannel marketing in place, you have to ensure the transition between using different devices and accessing content on a mobile app and a device-agnostic website should be seamless. The design elements should be similar in each device. For instance, you should not use a blue theme for your app and a red theme for your website. The seamless experience ensures the easy usability of your app and goes the extra mile to enhance the trustworthiness of your brand.
Focus on User Goals
The tasks a person would like to accomplish through a mobile app are probably different than that of a device-agnostic website. Let’s consider a restaurant app, for instance. The objectives of a user using a restaurant app may include viewing the menu, make a reservation or order food, or get directions to the place. In most cases, they wouldn’t be interested in reading the business history or links to their social media accounts. So, you can hide those content in a mobile app.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and think about what you would want to achieve on a mobile app. Also, when it comes to usability, designers overlook the requirement of the login process to accomplish trivial tasks. For instance, banking apps demand logging in of users to do anything on the app. Let’s assume a user wants to locate the nearest ATM, for which the login process is unnecessary. Enabling those features to be readily available will enhance the user experience of the app.
Allow for Personalization
Personalization is a key factor in improving the user experience when it comes to mobile apps. It can greatly help you achieve your marketing goals and is a win-win situation for all the stakeholders.
Personalization helps you to serve relevant content to your users and push the irrelevant content away from them. Also, it can mitigate the distraction on your app, streamline components such as the purchase process, and ensure the intended message resonates with the visitors’ needs.
But you must also remember that personalization is a double-edged sword. Too much personalization can cause adverse effects. You have to only use personalization to some extent that matches the level of trust a user has with the app and your business. For instance, how would your users feel when they witness the ad of a product of which they were talking about but haven’t searched for? So, leveraging advanced advertising algorithms to serve better ads can leave visitors feeling apprehensive.
Always Make Things Easier
When a user visits your mobile app, they want to complete a task as soon as possible. So, the UX designer should keep that in mind and work towards reducing the number of steps taken to accomplish a task. So, mitigate everything that is not important or quintessential to complete a task. Making essential tasks easy to complete on a mobile interface is also a key factor.
Let’s take a quick example of eCommerce apps. eCommerce apps offer an option to input credit card information by focusing the camera onto the surface of credit cards. The app will automatically read the numbers and inputs them automatically.
Good Onboarding Practices
Ensure your onboarding process is simple, clean, and good. However, the definition of “good” varies from application to application. There are apps such as to-do lists and web browsers that are simple to use and need minimal onboarding. With a couple of splash screens explaining the unique features of your product, your users will start navigating through your app.
On the other hand, when it comes to complex apps such as financial services or project management apps, you need to deliver a more comprehensive onboarding.
Use Established Gestures
Mobile app designers should consider implementing established gestures that are familiar to the users. For example, pinching to zoom and swiping have become default gestures for most users and should be incorporated whenever possible.
When you desperately want to deviate from these established gestures, it is quintessential to clue the users about this deviation. You can intimate them during the onboarding process or the tour of your app.
Wrapping Up
Siam Computing is a team of elite developers who specialize in helping companies develop mobile apps with perfect UX design and take them to market. Our team members are more than just developers – they’re specialists who work together to deliver a custom solution perfectly designed to achieve your specific objectives. Businesses love our work because of the in-depth market and competitor research with which we help enhance the user experience of the app idea. For more information, you can contact us or send your queries to hello@siamcomputing.com.
