Mobile phones, ever since their advent, have changed our lives completely. Latest, we have smartphones that are capable of doing almost everything for us in the form of a mobile app. Now, everyone has identified the advantages of using mobile apps for business. This has created cut-edge competition in the market of mobile apps. To stand out, your mobile app must have something unique and creative. The most basic thing to come out as extraordinary is to have the best UX/UI design. So, let us look at the top 10 tips mobile app design tips.
1. Simple Typography
Using too much fancy typography will not only make the text less legible but also not appear appealing on the small screen of mobile phones. Sans Serif is considered the most suitable choice for creating mobile apps. However, the trend has migrated from thin fonts to bold and stark fonts. Such typography makes it easier for users to navigate. The most important thing is to never have an entire sentence in ‘ALL CAPS’. Moreover, ensure that you have a uniform font throughout the app. Different fonts for headings and different sections can still be adopted but carefully. Remember, the simpler the better. Also, choose a contrasting colour with the background to make them look charming.
2. Layers and Depths
Material Design is among the top entries of the design trends. This design pattern makes it very comfortable to navigate in the app. One of the most appealing features of this design pattern – Material Design is the creation of layers. Using layers, shadows can be added to the elements based on the requirements. For example, a shadow can be added under the element that is covered. Also, the colours can be added. Different layers can be stacked for as many details as you wish to include. The interaction information will be cued from the topmost layer and information will be conveyed by the base layer. Even Google follows this design methodology.
3. Follow a Grid
You must use a grid to place the elements in proper positions. This does not mean that your UI should be checkered. Rather, the grid should be invisible to the end-users. Use it only at the time of design. The spacing can be justified properly and the elements too will be of uniform size. The grid will make your app look well-organized, neat, and thereby charming. The users will not be interested in using an app that has misplaced images and misaligned texts. So, use a grid to visualize your design and ensure that images don’t overlap with each other or even text or elements for that matter.
4. Color Scheme
Stick with what is proven to work. Experimenting with the colour scheme is not advisable. Using bright colours for any mobile app’s colour scheme is a big no. Choose a colour scheme that is readable and not gaudy. Use green colour for anything positive in nature. Similarly, the negatives should be red. These are instinctive for users. Using the opposite can mislead the users and reduce your conversion rate. On the other hand, you can also go with the trendy monochrome colour scheme. The users can be provided with the liberty to choose the colour scheme of their choice – Light or Dark.
5. Smooth Navigation
Navigation should be kept as simple and user-friendly as possible. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Creativity is required in the designing of your app’s UI, but it should not be overdone to complicate the navigation. Every single tab or activity for that matter should be easily approachable. If you use icons, make sure they are purposeful. Add menus for navigation that are well-organized and understandable. Also, wrap the subcategories under the main category for a structured morphology and more importantly, less scrolling. No matter how complex your design is, make sure that you have relaxed the navigation at least; otherwise, the users will migrate to some other app very easily.
6. Responsive Design
Many devices of different screen sizes are available that operate on the same operating system. So, the design should be responsive and appear on a scale appropriate to the screen size. Also, the apps nowadays have web applications e.g. WhatsApp Web. Hence, care should be taken at the time of designing the app. The design should appear equally appealing to each of the screen resolutions possibly available.
7. Animations
Animations add life to the app. Users feel more connected to the app if it has animations as the actions can be seen happening. More importantly, the actions must be visible. There should be something to indicate that an action is happening or has happened. For example, when a button is pressed, the colour can be darkened for the on-click event. Perhaps, a loading symbol can be shown that the task henceforth is being processed. If the user has no acknowledgement, he/she is bound to feel that the app has frozen. This leaves a negative impression of your app and has the potential to draw your users away.
8. Accessibility
The design layout should be such that all kinds of users – ones who hold the phone with both hands, right-handed, and left-handed are comfortable with it. The elements should be placed in a way to makes them accessible without much effort. The elements should be appropriately sized and placed in the right position. Also, keep in mind the users with some impairment. The text size should be adjustable as per the user’s vision mutilation. Now, at the same time, you also need to take care of the change in the size of elements because of this change. If this is not handled, there can be problems with text overlapping the images or some other problems which will make it worse for such users to use your app.
9. Don’t drain the battery
Yes, you should have a very creative, fancy, and yet user-friendly mobile app design. But you should also make sure that the design does not consume a lot of battery. It should work with sufficient yet not too much battery even at high screen brightness. Take benefit of the AMOLED displays available in the latest devices. They do not consume much battery and more than that, the dark themes look classy too.
10. Test
The most important tip is to test the design thoroughly before passing it for launch. Every element of the design should be tested for every scenario that can be thought of. Gather feedback from as many people as you can and work on the suggestions to the possible extent. The testing team should be different from the designing team to remove any scope of bias. Take suggestions from beta users or focus groups. Many times, the bugs or glitches can be even because of some incompatibility with the design. This can be discovered only if the design is tested properly.
Well, there are still many more points to be considered for effective mobile app design. But, the least you can do is follow the ten mobile app design tips mentioned above. These tips will your app shine without any compromises on the performance. Just stick with the tips, think out of the box, and you will create an award-winning design for your mobile app.
Suggested:
Why Mobile App Experience Is Important?
How To Begin A Mobile App Startup That Makes Millions?
Explore The Top Mobile Application Tools In 2020 Here
Agile Web Design Process Vs The Waterfall Method – The Ultimate Battle
Such useful information is seen on the internet today. It contains very useful information. The article is nicely explained and easy to understand. Thanks for sharing this valuable information with us. Keep your good work.