Let’s imagine there are two applications with a similar business model and features.
In the first seconds of use, one application might seem more convenient because it’s easy to navigate and zoom, as well as to satisfy the user’s needs and solve their problem quickly. While comparing to another application that might look fancy and colorful but at the same time will confuse or even worse—distract the user. And of course, it will bring zero-value to them.
Good design is intuitive. People just know whether a design is good or bad from the way it feels to use.
Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while clarifies its structure. In the best case, it is self-explanatory.
Good design sells.
🤩 Make a good strong impression
The truth is that people don’t want to make decisions based on a long list of app features.
Various studies on how to quickly people form an opinion about a web page or app visual appeal show that it takes around a second to capture user attention.
Hence, don’t fail to make an excellent first impression. You don’t want your users to drop the app as fast as possible.
You can ensure that people will stick by
- Implementing user onboarding that will be the best guide through application for them.
- Breaking sign-in without forcing registration too early and with the opportunity to try the app first
- Providing clear USP (Unique selling proposition) to explain what the app offers as a service
The first impression should make users feel like it is all about them. They are the center of attention. Just remove all roadblocks to app usage for them.
✅ Solve the user problem first
The only scenario in which users will love using your app is when it will address their needs.
Beauty in design is less about aesthetics and more about how well it helps users perform a particular task.
If the app design doesn’t solve the user’s problems or solves the wrong problem, then it’s the business product that failed.
Thus, the main job of the designer is to drill into the research to define the pain point of the user first. The most practical approach to do that is to apply the Double Diamond process to discover and determine the problem that business can solve.
💭 Make the brand memorable
If the user should choose between two or more familiar apps with the same features, they will go after an app brand of which they recognize, or with more enjoyable visual solutions.
It would be best if you made your brand memorable with the long-term, meaningful user-experience and attractive visuals.
Learn and implement main design principles, guidelines, and techniques for developing a standing brand for your business or app.
Moreover, you can follow the Honeycomb UX model that includes seven key factors that define best user experience practices for today’s well-informed users.
🤝 Build trust with users
One of the crucial things that businesses should focus on primary when developing an app is how to gain a user’s trust.
Trust is about being credible or reliable in the eyes of the user.
And here are some ways how to build an app with the foundation of a solid trust by
- Predicting users' concerns. When you ask users some private or sensitive information, explain to them before why and how their information will be used, processed, and stored.
- Providing security options with two-factor authentication and quick response times to security-related user’s inquiries. So that they can trust their personal information and credit card numbers are safe.
- Avoiding Dark Patterns in Design—tricks that make users do things that they don’t mean to, such as signing up, buying something, or sharing some info.
- Telling more about your business. Develop transparency by giving the user a sense of who you are and what your business is about. Create a trustworthy corporate identity and strengthen your brand.
Besides that, don’t try to push the user with overwhelmed promo banners, pop-up adverts, poor search facilities; otherwise, people may quickly abandon your app.
💎 Convert users to customers
Ultimately, if a product does what it’s supposed to do and brings value, a business will develop a more loyal customer base and sell more products in the long-term.
For example, people hate filling out web forms. Especially, if it’s necessary to enter the data in many input fields to get that thing they want.
To make this process for the user a bit easier by automating the form as much as possible by generating the city and the country automatically after adding the billing/shipping address.
After all, thoughtful visual parts with clear user flow motivate people to click that call-to-action button and fill the forms to make a purchase.
So why not to make a few tweaks to the app user experience for an impressive increase in conversion rates.
Conclusion
Considering all the listed reasons above why app design is a significant part of digital business, we see that building a pleasing app to the user is not easy.
Moreover, it may be redesigned from time to time, depending on the new business requirements and model.
So the daily product designers work to build a sustainable user experience by doing qualitative and quantitative research to identify the user flaws and design practical and thoughtful visuals for the app.
Great app design is definitely much more than an aesthetic thing. To stand out as a brand worth noticing, you should invest in it.
If you know other tips on how to design an outstanding and useful app for the user, don’t hesitate to tweet them and mention me!