Importance of UI/UX design in mobile applications

 A great mobile app UI/UX design always attracts more people to your app. Since the advancement of smartphones both android and ios apps have taken popularity among people. As for this date, there are 2.85 million apps available in the google play store along. Stand out of these competitions a unique idea should evolve with the right ingredients of UI/UX combinations.

Since the article tries to focus on UI/UX understanding these terms is pretty important

 

What is UX?

UX simply stands for user experience. User Experience is what the users feel while using your services. UX creates the basic appearance of any application that helps in engaging more users. So UX should be in such a way it should convert your users into loyal customers.

 

What is UI?

UI stands for User Interface. The User Interface (UI), on the other hand, is the process of improving the presentation and the interactivity of the web or mobile application. It well focuses on creating interactive widgets that users use. It may be a button, icon, or visual elements that users interact with.

 

Why UX & UI is important for Mobile app development

Before going further it’s better to know the importance of UI and UX. Great and fancy functionalities don’t do the job always. Design is the key to approach a customer. The UX/UI Design of the application improves the user experience and customer satisfaction that ultimately helps increase the number of users of the specific application.

Since now it’s all about competition if you didn’t own a unique idea a design may be the key for you to draw attention. So you need to hit the bullseye in this short span of time to make your presence in the market. The first impression matters always when using the app for the first time. So using design principles will help to put a first-time good impression.

For a start-up or a small venture, the importance of UI and UX Design becomes even more crucial as the first impression lasts long, and using UI and UX designing can make or break the brand recognition.

On the other hand, it’s very important for the growth of your business. From a business’s point of view, it is essential to emphasize the users’ satisfaction in order to build the brand value and reputation of the business. An effective UI/UX structure makes the users stay and help businesses eventually earn loyal customers. A good UI helps load the app faster and provides the users with a top-notch user experience in terms of navigation, look and feel to widen the customer base. In the end, it’s all about making a trusted user base.

 

UI & UX design principles

There are several UX and UI design essentials in Mobile App development. below we gonna look at them in more detail. By following these UI design essentials you will be able to avoid 2 gulfs users face when interacting with a typical app. Those design gulfs are people usually falls into are called gulf evaluation and gulf of execution and simply means the mismatch between our internal goals on the one side, and, on the other side, the expectations and the availability of information or feedback from the app.

The below 5 design principles will act as a UX/UI design guideline when doing these in practice.

1.Scale - Designers use a scale to show importance and rank in a composition of components. The visually pleasing design should not use more than 3 sizes so that users can easily identify the elements in the interface.

2.Visual Hierarchy - A layout with a good visual hierarchy will be easily understood by your users. Elements in the interface should be aligned in such a way that it’s ordered according to the importance. This principle controls the delivery experience of the mobile app. If you have a hard time figuring out where to look on a page, it’s more than likely that its layout is missing a clear visual hierarchy.

3. Balance - The design should be balanced so that areas in a mobile interface are very clear to the observer’s eye. Using whitespace can play a major role when balancing your components to the mobile app UI.

4. Contrast - Using contrast appropriately in a design can convey a noticeable difference between objects in the interface to the user. The principle of contrast can be applied using correct combinations of colors. You can see this if you are using iOS.

 

5.Consistency - Most mobile app users are now having a mental model of their own of how’s a typical user interface looks like. So user expects consistency among the apps he uses. The more familiar your product is, the more easily users will learn it and the better their experience will be. This is also a plus point for all the designers out there because you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Any mobile app designer needs to consider consistency when it comes to UI design tips.

 

Best Practices in Designing an App That People Would Love

To improve design there are several best practices to follow when it comes to U/UI design tips. Let’s study the most important practices out of them.

 

1.Design a prototype and then proceed

Before you start developing right away it’s always good practice to do a prototype. And it’s a better way to UI/UX design’s importance in application development. There are mainly 2 types of prototypes. One is low fidelity prototypes. Where you design the UX using papers or wireframing software. Those are simple designs you just use to show people how it looks like from a minimum point of view. Then there are high-fidelity prototypes where the design looks similar to the final product. These types of prototypes are sometimes made as functional ones. So you can get the final product feel. By doing these prototypes then you can show these to our target audience and get feedback. So then you will be able to change them along the way as to how your consumers prefer them. These prototypes can be considered as UI design essentials in Mobile App development.

2. Testing is key

Consumers don’t like a buggy product that has a bad non-functional UI and having a bad user experience along the way. So it is always a good practice to test the product with actual users before going to the market. A designer or a developer won’t notice these things usually. Having beta testing inside your community is always a better approach to avoid failures in the end game.

3. Provide fast loading speed

Speed is an essential aspect of your Ul/UX design. Users want to save time and, therefore, prefer an application with a short loading span. So the app should design in such a way that it will have a lag-free workflow.

4. Simple and normal design

Any component in the app should be designed in such a way that it should be simple. By following these UI design tips it will be easier for the consumer to use the app. Think of a user interface where too many fonts and menus. It will be harder for a user to navigate to do his intended action. But just think of the google search. It’s simple and does the necessary task accurately. That kind of simple make s popular app to users.

5. Show, don’t tell.

Interactive apps with user-friendly diagrams and visual aids are useful rather than using long yet descriptions. Using white space as necessary and using animation and micro-interactions to catch attention will create the right mood, so there’s no need to add clutter or extra text.

 

By following the above best practices with principles will help a designer to develop better mobile applications for a vast majority of people.