Apptuse App Design Philosophy
When I first joined Apptuse, one of their main apps was running beautifully and they had just started developing their Admin app. It was an essential time for me to join in because as the saying goes, “Design is an ingredient in the recipe for development, not just a dressing.”
Starting from scratch, we tried to keep the app as small in size as possible. Currently standing at 5.40 mb on android and 10mb on iOS, it’ll take the least amount of space and makes the app more mobile friendly.
After the logo, the second most important screen is the Welcome screen that your users see. Your users decide within 50 milliseconds if they like an app or not, just by their very first engagement with the app.
To capture their interest, we’ve tried to make the background more abstract and artsy with a few symbols depicting e-commerce and sales.
We’ve created a visual path for the eye to follow, using color hierarchy. The most important action we want our recent installers to do is to Sign up, and that has been given the main priority. The log-in and demo buttons are faint as we they are secondary options.
Next up, when we encourage them to sign up, we know that filling a form can be tedious so we have made a small graphic towards the bottom of the page which does the job of distracting the user from the seriousness of the form and into a much approachable design.
Once he signs up, we have an on-boarding walk-through which imparts knowledge about the key benefits and features of Apptuse, while simultaneously setting up the user’s store in the background.
The color psychology
We redesigned and changed the primary app color from a heavy grunge purple to a much vibrant, nurturing and a much more happening color.
The color we chose is a variation of Fuchsia, which inspires confidence, assurance and maturity. It symbolizes being more secure and responsible.
The text and icon color selected is #707070. It is a very neutral, impartial color. It radiates professionalism and is a very classic mature color.
Once inside the app, the Dashboard page is the first one to be visible by default. We wanted to keep the dashboard minimalist so that it doesn’t take their attention away from the stats and to some unnecessary design element. We wanted to keep the design as clean as possible without looking empty or having too much white space.
Earlier, we had a separate POS app, which only dealt with the business and transactions done at the point of sale. We have now combined the POS app into the new Apptuse app itself. Doing this ensures a smooth flow and exchange of data within the app itself.
Another important page in our app is the orders page. We wanted to show the user all the possible critical information of the order number in the first go and hence we designed a very detailed but clean design for the order page.
The product page is the most versatile and most active of all our pages. There is a constant addition or deletion of products by the user. The products page view gives an overall basic look to all your current as well as out of stock product. This view is very clean and doesn’t have too much information unlike the orders page. Once you click on an individual product, you’re taken to the settings for each particular product which will allow you to modify, edit or delete the product.
The categories are included to allow the client to be very organised. It allows his experience with multiple products in multiple categories to be a smooth sailing experience.
The icons chosen to represent the individual pages are filled so not distract them from the actual name of the page. We have a solid white background to navigate the sidebar for easier readability.
Design wise, the app is still under process and it’ll always keep getting better. I would highly recommend you download the app and give it a go — Start selling online, right from your phone — to get started download the app by clicking here.
