Best Practices for Good User Experience in Mobile Apps — Part 2

Welcome back to another part of series Best practices for good user experience in mobile apps. Previously we have read about the best practices for good user experience in mobile apps like Frequently used features positions, Minimum input fields, Personalization, consideration of one hand use, Onboarding tour with interaction, Holding user distraction while performing some time-consuming actions, Shimmer effects and many more things.

Now it’s time to explore more in the field of UX. With few short points let me show you a precap of this second part. We get you this blog so that you can learn many new things about the

• Designs & Animation
• User Inputs
• Common Styles
• Keyboard Manage and many more things…

1. Make Simple Design And Add Animations

Nowadays it’s a fact that animation is one of the most influential ways that contribute to UX design by creating emotions that users can easily understand. Emotions are known to significantly impact consumer response, so the use of animated elements is a potentially effective way to ensure positive feedback from users.

Search:-

Have you ever thought, Why is Google known as the synonym of search today? It totally changes our mind to search on google if we are looking for anything.

In the same way, when a user uses any apps or website, they must look for the search console where they can search for a particular item or the things they come for here. That’s why whenever you make any app you must think for the search console so that it can easily attract your user and make it more user friendly.

Navigation: -

Well, we all know or must have heard that Navigation design is the discipline of creating, analysing, and applying the way users navigate through an app or website.

When it for Navigation, then it plays an integral role with your users in locating and handling your results. This is how your user can easily go from point A to the other point B.

a. Bottom Navigation Bar -

Well, the best thing about Bottom navigation bars is they allow movement between primary destinations in an app.

Now there are some things that you should keep in mind while designing the navigation below:

• Show only the most important and the most frequently-used destinations
• Keep not more than 5 keys in the shelf.
• In case you are not adding text, create buttons that are comprehensible.
• Avoid using scrollable icons in the tab bar
• Avoid using icons of different colors in your bottom tab bar

b. Top navigation- It is a very useful navigation element. And users can switch between different categories of content easily with top tabs. It provides a very good mechanism for promoting awareness as well as the alternative views within your app. And we find that using a label and an icon works best.

c. Gesture-Based Navigation- Gesture-based navigation enables users to quickly swipe in their desired direction to navigate through an app or perform a particular action. It removes UI clutter. With construction gestures at the heart of your design, you can minimize your interface and save screen space for valuable content. The gestures include touching and dragging the screen horizontally left and right or vertically up and down and zooming out.

d. Floating Action Button- It allows users to action the most common or primary action for that screen in the application. And the icon may be animated. It animates onto the screen as an expanded piece of material by default. It is used for sharing and used to add something like used to add a note etc.

This is to prioritize the most important action for users you want to take. It takes up little screen space. Also, when it compared to the tab bar, it doesn’t take up an entire row. The floating action button slightly impairs usability when users first interact with the button. Because it is so notable and intrusive, use only one per screen.

e. Navigation Drawer- It enables quick navigation between views that perhaps are unrelated, in this case. And it also allows for a deep navigational structure. And it can reduce the visibility of infrequently visited destinations, which is helpful in some cases.

Tap area should be larger:

Size matters! Yes, it is really a very essential thing to think about all the different types of users you have means those who are using your app.

When you are designing your app’s interface, it is more satisfying to make your touch target larger rather than smaller, so that it is easy for users to tap. Touch targets are areas of the screen that react to user input.

2. Validations And Handle Error Properly

When people connect to the user interface then errors occur. Sometimes, they are because users make mistakes on their own end. And sometimes occur because of the app’s failure. Whatever the reason there are, but these errors and how they are controlled, have a huge impact on the user experience. And most importantly bad errors paired with useless error messages can fill users with difficulty and leave your app to users.

Now let’s talk about some problems and solutions. If you are making any apps then you should be familiar with the most common in-app interactions that could lead to the error state.

Suppose you have to make an app for flight booking where it needs a date and time for the ticket booking. At the time of booking if the user gives the past date and time, which leads to incorrect. It also leads your app to a bad image.

• Solution: — What you can do during the building of the app is you can give them a calendar, which makes them very comfortable to book at the right date and time.

Also, you will get many more kinds of errors like when you enter mail id, at the time most of us forgot to use “@”.

• Solution: — You can show a message that you are missing “@”.

3. Reduce User Input

User — the one who has a goal in mind every time they use your apps. And most of the time one of the most popular interactions they perform to achieve, Form.

The form is nothing but the collection of different data, in other words, we can say it as an input. Whenever a guest wants to get in touch with you, then he will use the form or some sort of input field like a text box.

Therefore, to make the user experience amazing, developers should pay extra attention to input areas and construct creatively to make a lasting impression on users. These inputs consist of many kinds like: -

• Compulsory Vs. Optional
• Having Default Values
• Autofocus For Mobile App
• Keyboard For Text Inputs In Mobile
• Email Sign Up Forms
• Login/Sign Up Form
• Payment Form

Let’s take an example of a login/sign-up form, there you will get a long form where you can fill in all the details, and then you can create any kind of account. But at the same time if you will get an option of login/sign up by Gmail, isn’t that will be great. You can create/login into your account in few seconds only.

Also, you can log in/sign up by your social accounts too. By Facebook, Instagram, and many more.

4. Common Style

Depending on your application development strategy, the app may perform well, but it is only half of the thing you have done. If you really want to make an awesome app, then it should be really have a killer design.

Apps that are not well designed simply have not been successful. You may be able to skate for a while, but eventually users will get frustrated and stop using it.

Here are some top design tips that everyone needs to know. Let’s get right

• Stick with what works: When you talk about designing an app, there is no reason for you to try and replace the wheel again. Most successful apps all have similar designs. Do not design an app that is a difficult learning curve for users.
• Do not select random colors: All design elements of your application must have a clear purpose, including color objectives.

Do not make the colors bright, contrasting or difficult to read. If the colors are very bright then you don’t want to hurt anyone’s eyes. If you reverse the normal color associations, it is confusing to the user. As a result, your conversion rates will suffer.

• Keep it simple: Well, I am not saying that your design needs to be super basic. But also, don’t go over the top in terms of complexity with the user interface.

Remember that real users are going to see and use your app on a small device. Do not try to jam everything in a small space and it is expected to work. UI elements must be taken into account for usability.

5. Keyboard Manage

Nowadays it is a very common task for mobile apps to open an on-screen keyboard whenever users need to enter their details, choose a number, type a passcode, and many more things that you need.

But at the same time, bad behaviour of your keyboard can disappoint your users.

Designing a great app is not easy.

Whether you are designing your own app, hiring a designer, or you are hiring a designer, it is important to keep all the best practices of design in mind.

Let your creativity shine, but don’t let it compromise the application.

Stick to the basics.

Conclusion

There are several factors to be considered when choosing from the web, native, and hybrid mobile app options for mobile devices. Each has its advantages, but mobile apps will often represent your most efficient development option. Should you choose to go down that path, I hope this mobile app development blog will help you reach your destination directly and successfully.

If you liked this series of posts don’t hesitate to comment and share.
I hope it will be useful for you, Happy Coding!