You might have a unique app idea, but that is not good enough to ensure that your users will keep it on their devices for a long period of time.
If they do not have a simple and seamless experience, while using your app for the first couple of times, they are highly unlikely to use it again. That is the cold hard truth.
Remember, a highly innovative app with a poor UX design can quickly turn your dream into a nightmare which means that the focus must be on getting the UX right!
So, while selecting an appropriate mobile app development company to convert your app idea into reality, it is necessary to stress upon the need to have the right UX for your mobile app.
Also, check the past work of the app development company to gain faith in their ability to design a user-friendly mobile app.
See Also: 16 Essential Strategies for Improved User Experience (UX)
So, here are a couple of best practices that will help you stay informed and set your direction right. Read on to learn more.
Ensure Your App is Adaptive to the Users' Preferences
Your in-house app development team or your chosen third-party mobile app development company must be able to provide a customized UX based on the users' personal information and internet usage habits.
You also need to ensure that your mobile app is able to adapt to the users' preferences and delight them with a personalized customer experience.
For example, there are many travel apps out there that offer preferences to the users even before they ask for the exact details. Such apps use past user behavior and data in the form of usage, geolocation, and app settings.
Let us consider the following example. Your app development team is designing an online shopping app and your users have a tendency to shop in the first week of a month, after they received their salary. In such cases, you can offer them discount coupons for their favorite category of products, which are valid for the first week of the month, as part of their customized experience.
Keep the Push Notifications to a Minimum
Push notifications inside a mobile app help to enhance user engagement. However, a flurry of notifications, especially if some of them are repetitive in nature, can annoy your app users, leading them to get rid of the app. Hence, it is necessary to maintain a fine balance between sending excessive notifications and not sending any.
For example, while sending any event notification, make sure that the users are near the location of the event by using their geolocation data. Similarly, sending a "product discount offer" notification to users immediately after they have just shopped from your app is likely to frustrate them.
So, instead of sending several push notifications throughout the entire day, ask your iPhone app Development Company or Android app development company to restrict the frequency of the notifications to perhaps one per day or so.
Limiting the User Actions Required
Sometimes, if your app idea is great, the Android app development companies (or iOS ones) may get carried away and add too many functionalities that could confuse the end user. And, worse yet, such complexity inside the app may require the users to tap a number of times, while browsing through the app. That is destructive.
If your app makes your users work hard to just get to the data that they are looking for, they will hardly explore your app the next time.
So, keep the navigation simple and ensure that the users can find the information easily with the least number of taps on the app screen. The UI design should be kept minimal as well and the app should only present the content that the users need to know.
See Also: 7 Latest UI Trends that can Change Web and Mobile Development in 2017
Provide an Effective Help Documentation and Search Interface
Your iPad app development company (or its Android counterpart) may have designed some of the best functionalities for your mobile app.
But, imagine a new mobile device user browsing through your app and closing it without checking out the stand-out features of your app. This may happen if you do not have a good built-in user preview that explains "how to use the app".
Also, if a user opens your app, after hearing about some great feature, he or she must be able to reach that feature quickly. This is where an easy-to-use search interface can direct your users to the features you want them to use.
Use Effective Gestures
Your app may have excellent functionalities like swiping and scrolling as part of gesturization, but, to lure users, you should try to upgrade your mobile app UX with better gestures as different types of users may prefer various gestures.
For example, the "side swiping menus" gesture is used by top apps like Facebook and Gmail to save space. You can also ask your Android app company to provide such a functionality for your app.
Similarly, if you are using the services of an iPhone app development company, you can stress upon your need for the inclusion of the 3D touch feature which has been included in Apple Watch.
So, how do you ensure your UX design stands out from the rest?
See Also: 9 Proven UX Tips To Skyrocket Website Conversions