Good to Great: Enhance Your App Design for Maximum Engagement
How often do you use your mobile device? Almost every day! If you notice, almost everyone is engaged with some app, scrolling up, down, or swiping left and right. There are surprising statistics around this: an average American checks their phone 144 times a day. Also, half of Americans reveal that they are addicted to cell phones. But why?
What is making them hooked on their mobile phones? What exactly engages them is that they spend 88% of their time within apps.
A well-designed app not only looks attractive but also provides intuitive interactions, making it effortless for users to accomplish their tasks or consume content.
If you want to learn more about how app design works and why it's so important, read this blog to the end.
Let's get started!
What is mobile app design?
Mobile app design is not only about how it looks but also how it feels. Hence, there are two methodologies essential when working on app design for mobile.
1. User Interface (UI): It refers to the visual representation of buttons, icons, and other components that the user interacts with within the application.
2. User Experience (UX): It refers to the experience of the user with the app.
How do you create an engaging app design?
To create an engaging app, infuse your design with elements that captivate and delight users, ensuring they keep coming back for more.
Follow the Heuristic approach
Heuristic evaluation is a set of standards used to assess and improve app experiences. Most mobile apps follow these standards, which are crucial for identifying design issues. Passing this evaluation is a basic rule for creating a good user experience.
Exercise progressive disclosure
Exercise progressive disclosure refers to breaking down complex tasks into small and simple steps.
When a user first downloads the app, they are guided through an onboarding process where they input their fitness level, goals, and any relevant information such as injuries or medical conditions. Based on this information, the app can tailor the experience to suit their needs.
Keep clicks simple and quick
Would you like an app that asks you to click every time to reach a desired result? You won’t? You will feel annoyed and exhausted.
If you're developing an iOS app, ensure that your tappable areas meet the minimum size of 44x44 points, as recommended by Apple's guidelines. For Android apps, adhere to Google's suggestion of using tappable areas sized at 48x48 dp.
Following these guidelines will help you design and manage other visual elements, such as buttons, icons, labels, and others, more effectively.
Improve load speed
To improve load time speed in your app, follow these steps:
-
Optimize asset loading: Compress media files and lazy-load images to reduce the initial load time.
-
Minimize app size: Remove unnecessary code and split large components to reduce the overall size of the app.
-
Use asynchronous loading: Fetch data and resources asynchronously to prevent the app from waiting for one task to finish before starting another.
-
Cache data locally: Store frequently used data on the device to reduce the need for fetching it from the internet every time.
-
Prioritize essential content: Use progressive loading to ensure that critical content loads first, allowing users to interact with the app sooner.
-
Optimize network requests: Reduce the number of network requests and use compression techniques to make data transfer more efficient.
-
Utilize app threading: Offload CPU-intensive tasks to separate threads to prevent them from blocking the main thread, which can slow down the app.
-
Measure performance: Monitor the app's performance using profiling tools to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement.
Navigation
- “3-click”
Use this approach, where everything can be done in three clicks or less. Popular apps such as Evernote, Tumbler, and Twitter are the best examples of this.
- Navigation tabs
Use a globally accepted navigation bar to minimise user efforts on learning it.
-
Finger mapping
-
Place tabs within reach of the user's thumb.
-
Use clear visual cues to differentiate tabs.
-
Implement scrolling or swipe gestures for additional tabs.
-
Provide feedback to indicate tab selection.
-
Test usability and iterate design based on feedback.
Bottom Line
Nailing an engaging app is all about keeping it simple, making it look good, and adding that personal touch. By tuning in to what users want, staying on top of trends, and fine-tuning app design, developers can craft experiences that people just can't get enough of. Making apps enjoyable and easy to use ensures users keep coming back for more, building lasting connections.
