Today, we obviously live in a mobile-dominated world. As a matter of fact, any business owner who is still focusing on the traditional way of improving business returns is likely going to lose a lot of meaningful opportunities to boost conversions. Whether for purchasing products or for searching for items online, the use of mobile devices and apps is currently booming.
Unfortunately, many businesses are yet to adopt the best practices needed to provide mobile users with exceptional experiences. If you are looking to improve the
mobile user experience (UX) of your app, this post is set to provide you with the knowledge that you need to achieve it in different ways. But before then, let’s consider what user experience (UX) is.
What is User Experience (UX)?
User experience simply refers to the combination of content and user interface. Take a restaurant for instance, where people come to eat food. Content can be likened to the food being served while the users are the guests. The user interface can be referred to the dishware presenting the content on the table while the user experience is the entire dining experience.
So, like eating food at a restaurant, users are not only looking to have products that are ‘attractive’ or ‘usable’ on their devices, they are also seeking to enjoy other relevant benefits such as have some fun, a sense of belonging, emotional satisfaction, and efficiency. The importance of good user experience is critical to the success of any app development. This is because it helps to make a product memorable, interactive, and accessible to users.
As a matter of fact, there is a need for app developers to conduct a meaningful user research prior to any product development. And immediately after product launch, there are several tools developers can use to gather data from their users. Some of these tools include
Facebook Analytics,
Flurry, and
Google Analytics.
So what are the best practices to developers can follow to deliver great user experience.
Use the information architecture to organize the content:
In a bid to facilitate intuitive access to the content and organize the acquired information, developers need to study the information architecture when analyzing the structure and several other elements of user experience. There are two ways of studying the information architecture, they include;
- The task-oriented perspective
- The information-oriented perspective
These two methods of studying information architecture are centered on users’ needs and tasks. The task-oriented architecture tries to analyze the various functions and interface which a user requires to complete a given task. As a matter of fact, mobile app developers need to navigate users to achieve their goal and provide relevant information that corresponds to user activities.
On the other hand, the information-oriented perspective tries to focus on the information aspect of user experience. This includes information architecture that helps developers arrange the content and information and provides relevant guidance during the process.
In the content requirements, the required information can be listed out in the suitable format. For instance, file preview can be presented as a thumbnail, date can be listed in the text, and file size can be presented in number. After the issue of content, the requirement has been solved, the next thing to consider is how the content can be made accessible, digestible, and interactive to users. At this point, certain elements tend to be absolutely essential. They include font size, icon design, paragraph length, information taxonomies, page hierarchy, and page layout.
A good foundation for structuralizing the information architecture can be obtained from your previous research on user behavior. Also, it is good to carry out a little extra study on decision-making psychology and cognitive load. Just so you know, this kind of research often helps to bring about a sketch of meaningful ideas that can be used in organizing the visual design.
Design a wireflow:
When it comes to creating a visual guide representation of an app’s structural framework,
app developers India often seek to make use of wireframes. However, if you’re looking to map out the interactive process of your application development it is preferable to make use of a wireflow. It helps to make out the relations between each session or page of the app.
Wireflow is a dynamic visual aid which is essential for your team’s communication. It includes the skeletal framework of a digital product. In order to establish effective communication among programmers, you must ensure to make it as detailed as possible. As your project progresses, you can decide how much details can be included.
However, if you are developing a basic information architecture, there is no need to have many details in the wireflow. But remember to mark out the page layout in both portrait and landscape modes, as well as the image size, button size, and font size.
Make a checklist:
Ultimately, it’s always a good practice to ensure a final checkup of the
app development project. Here is a quick guide as to how this can be achieved. They include;
- Help and documentation
- Help users learn to identify, analyze, and resolve errors
- Verify aesthetic and minimalist design
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- Recognition rather than recall
- Error prevention
- Consistency and standards
- User control and freedom
- Relate between system and the real world
- Visibility of system status
Basically, these guides mentioned above are commonly referred to as the 10 usability heuristics principles for UX design.
Gather data:
The collection of data is basically done for the purpose of verifying effectiveness. It is recommended that the product design should be re-examined by your team of programmers or developers from time to time. As a matter of fact, it is highly important to understand that digital tools are not an excuse for
top mobile app developers in India to hide behind the screen.
An effective way to reassess the current design and identify those areas that require necessary improvement is by organizing in-depth interview and promoting focus group discussions. All these are concerned with aligning your app with users’ needs and continuously optimizing the products.
In conclusion, if you have been thinking about how to improve your mobile users’ experience then you should start learning how to design a great mobile User Experience. It is only through this means that you can effectively achieve such objective. Although there is rarely any shortcut in the
app development process, a product can still get quick and rapid fame when it is painstakingly developed using all the elements mentioned above. With all these, you can efficiently address all the needs of your mobile users without missing a thing.