The Art of Crafting Intuitive UI Designs for Mobile Apps

There is more to it than meets the eye” is a quote you might have heard quite a few times in your life. However, for most of it, we tend to be attracted to eye-catching stuff. After all, we are humans who love visual images and motions.

When it comes to technology and mobile apps, UI designs hold the crux of human attention. The reason you ask? You guessed it right. It is the visual outlook of your website that convinces the audience to stay for a few moments longer on your website.

A good mobile app design will have high user retention from its target audience while a lousy one will drive the traffic away from your website. So, how can one enhance the UI design for their developing mobile app making it much more interactive and intuitive for the audience and convincing them to stay and check out the other stuff you offer on your app?

Stick with me till the end to master the art of creating intuitive UI designs for your mobile applications.

Key things to remember while designing an interactive UI

1. Recognize your target audience

Even though you might be the captain of your ship, your target audience is the one that steers you towards your destination. In other words, realizing the wants and needs of your target audience is a significant factor to consider before designing an effective UI. Your job as a UI designer is to pinpoint the exact metrics of user retention related to UI and create one relying on that data.

2. Keep it simple

Overwhelming your audience with unnecessary elements can make them abandon your app. A minimalist design that fulfills the conditions of a seamless UI experience is what you should strive for. All the elements of the UI must act as ancillary components to aid the user in viewing information on your app with great ease and convenience.

3. Effective Navigation

Picture this. A user installs your app and finds the UI attractive and engaging. He takes time out of his busy schedule to view the services offered in your app. However, due to errors in navigation he cannot get to his target location and uninstall the app. What a waste, right?

This is why you need to build a UI design with accurate and convenient navigation. Faulty or incorrect directions can lead anyone astray from their destination. Due to this, potential customers are compelled to uninstall the app from their devices. Make sure that important features are visible and accessible without much effort.

4. Visual Hierarchy

Make sure to show enough distinction between information and actions. A well-defined hierarchy of the components would depict effectively, the app’s central features. This visual hierarchy can be represented using different colors, contrast, and size to navigate the user’s attention to a particular direction.

5. Reviews and Feedback

You are working as a waiter in a flashy restaurant. Wouldn’t you like to know how the customers felt about your service before they leave? This is exactly why it is important to offer reviews and feedback even in the world of mobile apps. Offering visual cues like progress indicators or button animations is one of the ways to achieve that. The user is more likely to stay on your app if there is real-time response which makes the app much more interesting and fun to use.

6. Multi-platform Consistency

Your target audience might abandon your app if it shows the slightest margin of error when it comes to cross-platform functionality. Make sure to design a cross-platform compatible UI so that the user has no issues using the app on different devices. Regardless of the device, the functionality and user interface must remain the same. A hassle-free app in terms of navigation and experience across all devices is appreciated endlessly.

7. Interactive User-Onboarding Experience

Not knowing what buttons to press for help in an airplane for the first time can be the same as being completely clueless about how to use an app after the user installed it. Okay, that might be quite exaggerated but you get my point! This is why it is necessary for a good UI design to provide its users with a guide or instructions on how to use the app.

Helping your users through the initial structure of your app through guidelines and instructions is highly valued and generates positive feedback. The user’s rest of the journey through the app becomes much easier and comforting.

8. Perfect Mobile Responsiveness

The orientations and dimensions of a mobile device can vary from model to model. It is necessary for a decent UI design to function equally well in all kinds of devices. As a result, the user experiences a seamless and enjoyable time on your app regardless of the device he/she is using.

9. Jovial Error Handling

Bugs and errors are part and parcel of an app. No app is 100% bug/error-free. All apps crash sometime or the other, however, how the issue is dealt with makes all the difference in the world. Make sure to implement friendly dialog boxes and avoid using technical jargon to keep the user at ease with the technical issue. Such a way of handling inefficiency in the app goes a long way and enhances user retention.

10. Update your UI design

The process of completing a seamless UI design is relentless. Due to the user response and behavior, it is important that you must keep reinventing better user experience according to their dynamic needs. Study and reiterate the user behavior to keep working on the app’s usability and intuitive flow. Adapting to the user’s needs makes a statement about your constant service to your app’s user experience.

Conclusion

Building a well-streamlined UI design is certainly not an easy task to accomplish. However, now that you realize UI design is more than just garish and flashy colored elements of your app, you are closer to your dream of developing a seamless UI design.

Accounting for all the things above can be challenging, however, once implemented, your target audience will not just utilize your app but also invite others to use it. So make sure to consider the features mentioned above and develop an app that satisfies all of your customer’s needs from an app.