Let’s admit it: designing a mobile app UI doesn’t give enough room for your creativity. Native app UI limitations, small screen size and usability issues are there to restrict you and make your app design a challenge. Here are some tips that will help you create mobile app designs that look and work great.
- Find the balance
When you are designing a mobile app, your priority is to make your design appealing for both novice and advanced users. To do that, you have to find the balance between making your design intuitive and keeping it from becoming boring.
- Focus on goals, usability and learnability
Look at the best-designed apps and you’ll see that all of them use goal-driven design and concentrate on usability. Base your design on researching your target audience and make your app look and feel right to the person who’s most likely to use it. You should also make your app easy to learn, so that new users won’t uninstall it because they can’t figure out how to use it.
- Optimize the flow
Once you know your target audience, start mapping out the app’s flow. You can begin with writing it down and trying different options, then sketch it in a wireframe. A wireframe will help you visualize your app and better understand what needs to be optimized, so that you can move on to prototyping.
- Use intuitive patterns
Mobile users are used to a number of standard action patterns, such as sliding and tapping. Don’t ignore them or invent new things because your users will not appreciate it. Following familiar patterns will increase your app’s usability and make it even more intuitive.
And last but not least, avoid copying other apps’ designs. You want your app to be easy to use, but have a unique and fresh feel.
