A large amount of users abandon an app right after using it for the first time. Since users are picky about which apps they use, and so quick to abandon those they don’t enjoy, it’s essential to invest time and effort in creating a great user experience. The better the design, the more chances users will feel engaged with it and thus keep using it.
Great experience design is the perfect combination of beauty and functionality, which is exactly what you should be aiming for when building an app. This balance is often difficult to achieve, and it’s almost impossible to build a perfect app without continual cycles of iteration. That’s why designers should treat their own set of app design guidelines as a continually evolving project. It’s essential to create an effective build-measure-learn cycle where every design decision is evaluated according to the needs of your users and your business goals.
The principles you will read in these articles will help you design better experiences for desktop and mobile devices, but they won’t replace the need for your own user research and testing. You’ll need to test your solution with real users to understand which parts of your app design are working and which need improvement. For that very reason, you need to encourage user feedback at every opportunity.
Great design is not only about great aesthetics, it’s also about matching user expectations. You need to ensure the information architecture of your app matches the user’s mental model, navigation patterns are self-evident, all touch targets (such as buttons) are finger-friendly, and the app content looks equally good on mobile devices as it does on the web, at various screen sizes and resolutions.
It’s easy to identify the parts of your app that require polishing when you have a strong feedback loop in your product design process. It’s recommended that you conduct usability testing sessions on a regular basis, analyzing results and prioritizing necessary changes according to the impact they will have on end-users.
To match user expectations, it’s also vital to understand what is happening in app design today. Be aware of modern design techniques and product design trends. More specifically, pay attention to ones that help product teams create an excellent user experience and make effective design decisions. Read on for more articles about app design best practices and to learn about the latest developments in UX design knowledge.
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