There are nearly 2.5 million apps combined on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, two of the largest mobile applications stores, of course many of those apps would be similar and yet Apple’s App Store is growing by 641 apps per day. So, you understand the growing popularity of the applications and not all of them are successful; mobile apps fail all the time, and there’s not one reason why the failure occurs, it’s a cluster of many. One major reason apps fail are because of the inability to fulfill the design parameters which could be avoided, following these measures:
1. Setting a Goal
When designing an app, you’ll often get confused along the way, it’s best to set a goal and plan, you wouldn’t want to make changes during the process as it also hampers the workload of the app developer. User is the decision maker, and it’s the user you should keep in mind you have to influence. What kind of service is your app providing? Is it for Business purpose, education, lifestyle, entertainment, etc. How is it going to benefit the user? Answer this and always keep this in mind every step along the way.
2. Designing without a flowmap
After your set your goals; plan effectively. Plan how you want to go about designing your app and prepare a flowmap. Think of it as Google Map which will help you to reach your destination, the more you understand your map better, faster you work.
Create a flowmap with the help of UI designer and developer, your user interface in many ways will determine the success of your website.
3. Provide the best User Experience
An experienced UX (User Experience) designer will help you with this problem. Work with the UX designer to understand better the psychological aspect of the designing app. From the beginning to the end, provide the user an easy and flexible experience. For example, one major difference between mobile web and mobile app is that mobile app allows the user to automatically login with Google or Facebook account, hence eliminating the option to manually login which can be annoying, provide the user a non login experience.
47% people prefer mobile app more than mobile web because it provides the information faster, imagine a user comes to your app looking for a restaurant to check it’s menu and location, would he want to browse and navigate all the way to search for the restaurant of would he want to just type in the search box and find it right away? Find it right away.
4. Evaluate and Emphasize on critical information
One of the biggest mistake mobile app developers make is design their website as their desktop website. It’s a big NO, they’re not the same. Keep in mind the size of the smartphone and understand why people prefer mobile app over it’s website is because it’s faster, so the information should also be available at faster speed. If you already have a desktop website and you’re making an app out of it; prioritize your data so you know better what to display on your app. You shouldn’t display all the information on the app only the important one. Check the Zomato’s desktop website and see how desktop website display different information to that of mobile app.
5. Create a Story
Create a story on how the user will interact with your app, but allow flexibility. For instance, many times on an eCommerce apps, users come to just browse the app, look for anything good, or shortlist something for future. That’s why give the user the agility to move back and forth in the app to have the best of experience.
6. Design for Interruptions
The user is going to get interrupted every now and then: something at home or office, or something from phone, may be a text or a phone call, but user is going to get interrupted. So ensure that the app begins from it’s left off.
7. Testing
52% of the user stop using an app because of its performance, 58% because of the user interface. So do more testing and look for interruptions in design, and try to keep the errors to minimum as possible at the beginning.
Finally
It comes down to thinking critically and solving the problems, as much as designing is about creating amazing things, it’s also about identifying problems and solving those problems.
Image Source: BIGSTOCK
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