Well over 6000 Android apps hit the market every day.
Overall, 1.7 new apps come out every minute!
That’s a lot of new apps! Competition to create a successful app is fierce. Unfortunately, the vast majority of new mobile apps fall by the wayside, lost to the ever-growing pile of failed phone applications.
How do you stand out from the crowd and create an app that sticks?
Well, whether it’s for a mobile app or a website, the first port of call is an awesome design. The design of an app is pivotal to its success. But what goes into a great design?
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Jaw-Dropping App Design Tips for Your Mobile App
Keep reading to find out nine tips for creating a great mobile app design.
1. Know What Works
By this, we mean sticking to what you know works.
Take a look at the most successful mobile apps. From YouTube to Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and so on, each app may appear different, but they share many of the same characteristics.
It’s the simple stuff to keep in mind: tapping something to enter a new page, swiping to get rid of a screen, or pinching to enlarge. Users have come to expect a certain form of interaction with an app.
It’s fine if you want to get creative, but there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Know what works well. Know how users interact with the most successful apps. And do something similar.
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2. Make things Simple, Sleek, and Slick
Simplicity’s a key component in successful app design.
The human attention span’s now less than that of a goldfish. The implications of this are numerous. But one effect is our unwillingness to deal with complexity. Your app should be simple and easy to navigate. Otherwise, users will stop using it.
Keep things (think aesthetics, navigation, and overall style) simple and easy, to ensure that people keep using your app.
3. Consider the Grid
The basis of all mobile app designs’s an imagined grid on each screen.
You may not see it, but it’s there, and it provides an essential frame of reference to guide your design. Imagine this grid set up on each screen, and you’ll be able to use it to set your buttons, dots, lines, text, and so on, in the same place every time.
It’ll keep things uniform throughout your design.
4. Be Careful with Color
Color’s a key component in any successful design. It’s important to get it right.
Basic considerations include avoiding contrasting or bright colors which impact legibility and aesthetics.
There are also certain color tricks you can leverage. For instance, fading the colors of buttons on a screen can suggest a hierarchy. A darker color suggests importance, compared to a lighter color.
Likewise, color can impact how your app’s users.
For example, a red button carries connotations of ‘stop’, ‘danger’, ‘don’t press me’, and so on. In this way, a call to action that’s colored red is less likely to be successful. Green, on the other hand, encourages engagement. It’s a signal for positive responses, such as ‘go’, and ‘yes’.
5. Prioritize Load Speed
The loading speed of your app’s essential to its success.
It boils down to this: faster loading speeds promote engagement, and slower speeds hinder it. The slower a page loads, the likelier a user will bounce from it.
Consider that the likelihood of a bounce increases by 90% when someone has to wait between 1-5 seconds.
Your app must be fast!
6. Remember Usability
Your mobile app must be easy to use.
We touched on this topic earlier, but it’s worth emphasizing. No one will use your app if it isn’t simple to understand and straightforward to navigate.
Keep what’s known as the ‘rule of thumb’ in mind. It’s a way of remembering that most people use their mobiles one-handed, using only their thumb to interact with the device.
Ask yourself if your app is easy to use and make necessary changes if the answer is no.
7. Ensure Optimization for Different Screen Sizes
Obviously, mobile phones differ in size and style.
You have to optimize your app to work effectively on each of them.
Likewise, consider different devices too. Will your app be available for tablets and computers? If so, you should optimize it to function on each device.
8. Keep Basic App Design Principles in Mind
Technical considerations aside, basic design principles are always important to keep in mind.
Keep things clear to enable an intuitive app experience for your users. Remember simplicity’s key. Consistency is too. Your design should have a consistent, familiar, user experience.
Everything must be readable, legible, and with a level of contrast that promotes usability. Color obviously comes into play here too (see above).
9. Test, Test, Test
The notion of iterative design should be central to all app development.
You should test your app every step of the way, from start to finish. Test colors, usability, user experience, user opinions, and everything else whenever possible!
Not testing is like shooting from the hip: you don’t know if your app will be a hit or a miss. Testing is an essential way to know whether your app will be a success.
Conclusion
There you have it: nine awesome app design tips for your next mobile app.
The app world is immensely competitive. Thousands of new apps get released into the public domain every single day. You must do what you can to ensure yours stands out.
A winning app begins with an awesome design. Hopefully, the tips here have provided you with what you need to create something great.
Know what works, keep things simple, guide yourself with an imagined grid, be careful with color, and prioritize load speed, and usability. From here, optimize your app for different screen sizes and devices, made with design principles in mind, and tested every step of the way.
Do all this and you’ll have a better chance of creating a successful mobile app! Good luck!
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