If mobile apps have bodies, application design is probably the face of your app. You want to keep it simple, but you want to ensure it is attractive and engaging enough to keep users coming back.
Today, users have high expectations when it comes to mobile apps. This doesn’t surprise us when we know that an average smartphone user spends 88% of mobile time on apps.
How do you guarantee that in one of those times, they’ll pick your app?
You want to have a well-researched and meticulous applications design process.
In this guide, we will cover everything you need to know about application design, from its definition to steps for creating an effective design.
What is Mobile App Design?
At its core, a mobile app design is the look and feel of your application. This encompasses all the visual elements and interactive features that are incorporated into your app.
However, mobile app design goes beyond just the aesthetics. It also includes the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design aspects.
UX refers to how users interact with your app and their overall satisfaction with it. This includes ease of use, functionality, and emotional response.
On the other hand, UI design focuses on the visual aspects of your app and how users interact with them. This includes elements such as buttons, icons, color schemes, and typography.
Ultimately, a successful mobile app design is one that seamlessly integrates both UX and UI to create an intuitive and visually appealing experience for users.
Key Elements of an Application Design
In the mobile app development process, designing it may take a longer time than developing it. But, as long as you know the key elements that make a successful app design, you can create an effective and appealing user interface.
Here are the elements you want to consider in your application design:
1. User Journey and Flow
Before diving into the visual aspects, you must take a moment to understand your app’s user journey and flow. This refers to the steps a user takes to achieve their goal while using your app.
A well-designed app will have a clear and intuitive user journey that guides users through various screens and features seamlessly. This involves identifying key actions, mapping out different flows, and creating a logical navigation system.
2. Visual Hierarchy
Similar to web apps, mobile apps (even when they function on a smaller screen) should follow a visual hierarchy.
What is a visual hierarchy?
It is the arrangement and presentation of elements in a way that guides users’ attention and highlights the most important information. This involves using size, color, contrast, and placement to guide users’ eyes through the different elements on the screen.
3. Usability
Usability is a wide concept, but it is basically how easy it is for users to navigate and use your app. This includes factors such as clear labeling, easy-to-tap buttons, and intuitive gestures.
A good rule of thumb is to design with the “thumb zone” in mind—meaning placing important elements within easy reach of a user’s thumbs when holding their device.
4. Content
As they say, content is king. Your app design should look appealing and effectively communicate your content. Prioritize valuable, informative, and engaging content that answers users’ questions. Include visuals like images and videos when needed.
How to create compelling content:
- Tell a story: Craft a captivating narrative about your product and brand.
- Use simple language: Communicate in a way that everyone can understand. Steer clear of jargon and maintain a casual tone.
- Focus on proper formatting: Users will move on if your content is difficult to read. Keep it clean and easy to digest to maintain user engagement.
5. Creativity
Sure, simplicity is important in web app design, but that doesn’t mean it has to be dull! Add some creativity to leave a memorable impression.
Here are some tips:
- Add some artistic flair: Think about using eye-catching illustrations, images, cool typography, and animations to make your app pop and boost your brand.
- Keep it clear: Stand out with unique ideas, but don’t confuse your users. Use creativity to reinforce your brand and make an impact.
Application Design Process: How to Design an App?
Now, onto the most exciting part: designing your app! We’ve covered the key elements to consider; now, let’s dive into the steps of creating an effective app design.
1. Define the scope
What does scope mean? It refers to the objectives, features, and functionalities you want in your app. Defining this guides the design process and helps you stay focused.
Consider these questions:
- What are your app’s main goals? What do you want it to do?
- Who is your target audience? How can you attract users?
- What are your app’s essential features and functions?
- What are its visual design elements?
- How can your app stand out? Why would people choose it over competitors?
Answering these questions clearly sets the scope, allowing the app’s design and flow to be prepared.
2. Conduct user research
User research comes in all shapes and sizes, with different milestones. You can hire professional designers to assist you with this process or use your own research methods.
Here’s how our mobile app designers tap into the minds of your future users:
- Interviews
Interviewing real users is a research method that provides insights into their needs, pain points, preferences, and experiences. Unlike focus groups, user interviews are one-on-one sessions on specific topics, like behaviors, habits, or past experiences. They also provide demographic or ethnographic data used to build user personas.
- Surveys
As a market research method, surveys are quicker and easier to do than interviews. A UX survey provides qualitative and quantitative input for design. For instance, your team asks a group the same questions to gather opinions on a product feature or usability. These surveys help understand user feedback to create an intuitive design and a satisfying user experience.
- Focus groups
A focus group is a discovery method to help prioritize design features. You may invite 5-10 participants to ask their needs and feelings about your product. It helps gauge reactions to new features or gain insights into existing ones. A moderator typically guides the group discussion.
3. Analyze your results
You don’t just collect data; you must use it to inform your design decisions. Analyze the data and findings from your user research, keeping in mind your app’s scope.
- Create personas: Develop fictional users that represent your target group’s needs. By creating these personas, you gain a better understanding of their needs and behaviors. Use this insight to design targeted user flows and interfaces.
- Map out user journeys: Create journeys from research data to understand user interactions. Map steps users take to complete tasks in your app, identifying issues and opportunities for design improvements.
- Identify key features: User research will highlight essential features of your app. Focus on features that align with your goals and audience.
These results will help you create a user-centered design and guide your development team.
4. Write Your Product Requirements Document (PRD)
Think of the PRD as a living document where everyone on your design team pitches in and checks back throughout development. To really nail it, your PRD should cover the essentials:
- Product specifics: Outline the product idea and its goals.
- Background and assumptions: Set a context for your app’s goals, design decisions, and user stories.
- User stories: Define who will use your app, why they’ll use it, and what their journey looks like. (Use cases are defined from user research).
- Design principles or guidelines: Provide an upfront guide on how the app should look.
- User interactions: Describe how users interact with elements within your app. This is known as UI flow.
- Problems to solve: Identify potential problems that could impact the success of your app and explain how you plan to address them in your design process.
Plus, if you’re using tools or platforms that streamline your entire product workflow, take advantage of one of their cool features—writing your PRDs online. These tools come with a bunch of features to make writing product documents faster and easier.
5. Establish a style guide based on your brand
Aside from the technicalities in the design process, your app’s visual components play a vital role. A style guide characterizes your brand’s personality by defining your app’s visual theme.
Your style guide should include:
- Color palette: Use colors that represent your brand and appeal to your target audience (consider color psychology).
- Typography: Choose fonts that are easy to read and align with your brand’s tone.
- Imagery: Select images and graphics that match your brand aesthetics, whether it’s minimalistic, modern, or playful.
- Layouts and grids: Create a consistent look throughout the app by incorporating layout design elements like margins and spacing.
With a style guide in place, you’ll ensure consistency across all design assets. This makes for an impactful user experience where users can easily identify your brand.
6. Outline the application structure
Once you’ve gathered all those crucial insights with your team, it’s time to dive into the framework of your app’s interface design. Here, the application structure is all about defining how users interact with it, how the app behaves, and how the content is laid out.
Designing an app can be broken down into two main parts:
- Interaction design
Interaction design is all about crafting products that let users achieve their objectives in the best way possible. It’s about figuring out the interactions between the system and the user to boost the app’s usability. This design area considers user behavior, time, physical space, graphical elements, and content.
- Information architecture
As the name suggests, information architecture is about organizing and structuring content. It maps out where elements or content go so users can easily find them. A well-thought-out information architecture should be flexible and adaptable to new content. It can stay at the structure level or reveal more details about each element.
7. Build a wireframe
Wireframes are a must-have during the app design process. Think of them as simple sketches showing how a website, app, or product will look. They help designers figure out the visual order, UI elements, and how everything interacts, plus they allow for exploring user flow.
Typically, these sketches include the layout of interface elements, content, and navigation based on the data gathered earlier. For designers, wireframes are a handy tool to shape the final layout of the app design. Plus, they speed up development by getting everyone on the same page before diving into detailed mockups.
We suggest Figma or Axure RP when creating wireframes—they’re great tools to get started!
8. Send designs into development
Once everyone is happy with the final product design, you can start developing!
In this phase, you can choose to develop your app for either Android or iOS. We all know that iOS apps use Swift or Objective C, and Android apps are built with Java. It might be a good idea to start with just one platform since developing a single one by experts can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
But here’s the cool part: using frameworks like React Native or Flutter means developers only need to write one code base. They can then export it to both Objective C and Java, which saves a ton of time and effort.
Remember to keep communication open with your team throughout the development process to ensure that everything goes smoothly.
9. Test and launch
After design and development is complete, it is time for mobile app testing.
Tests should cover the following aspects:
- Functionality tests: Check that all features and functions work as intended.
- Usability tests: Test how easy it is for users to navigate through your app and complete tasks.
- Compatibility tests: Ensure that the app works on different devices, browsers, and operating systems.
- Accessibility tests: Verify if the app is usable for people with disabilities.
- Security tests: Verify that user data is secure from external threats or unauthorized access.
Based on the test results, make any necessary refinements to improve the performance of your app. Then, it’s time to share all your hard work with the world!
Need to Hire Mobile App Designers?
A captivating app user interface is the secret to higher user retention and engagement rates. Our app designers at Startechup will help you out.
We excel in crafting beautiful and user-friendly mobile apps that help businesses stand out from the competition. But the process doesn’t end here; it’s an ongoing cycle of testing, gathering feedback, revising, and implementing new features.
Contact us if you are interested in hiring mobile app UI/UX designers!
