4 UX- Factors which can make or break your new mobile app | MaxMobility

    Posted By Max Mobility
    On 13-May-2016
    • Business Mobile Apps

    Do you know: 79% mobile users move to a new site or another app if YOUR app is not optimized. 52% refuses to engage with your brand if they don’t feel good about it. How are you differentiating your customer’s experience from the rest of your competitors?

    The user needs to enjoy interacting with your app for them to find out what your product offers. Developing just another app is something your company does not want. You need to first impress to communicate.

    The good news is, providing your audience a great user experience is no rocket science. Here is a quick list of 4 UX factors which would help you to strike a chord with the audience.

    Reduce the Cognitive load:-

    A great app or mobile website should be easy to understand; your user should understand the basic functions at the first glance.

    Why is this so important?

    It reduces the cognitive stress of your users and allows them to enjoy the experience without spending their cognitive resources on trying to understand the app.

    You can offer the flawless user experience by designing your app with more predictability and selected creativity.

    Predictability implies that your app or mobile sites should look at least somewhat familiar to your user. There are places for creativity and experimentation of course, but if your groundbreaking app design looks completely alien to your users, your user experience is bound to take a hit. You can incorporate the elements of predictability by using familiar pattern grids, placing relevant CTA (Call to action) buttons on the thumb zone and using attractive graphics. Apps with a large list of menu option can be very distracting for users but contrast color CTA buttons, menus, and options, also help the users to navigate and have a great experience.

    Selected creativity is another way to reduce the cognitive load. Selective creativity balances out the monotonous feel of a predictable design. A classic example of selected creativity is providing step by step animated guide, instead of long and boring pages of instructions.

    Attention grabbing yet the easy-to-understand design is something you should aim while app designing. Such designs motivate the users to take action without being pushy.

    Emotional stimulation:-

    Purchases are often made based on emotions rather than cold logic. This also holds true for mobile apps and websites.

    Color scheme, themes and even language of the content: every aspect of your app works together to give users an emotionally stimulating experience.

    Colors have a profound effect on the human mind; red for example symbolizes action, green evokes a sense of growth, and purple oozes luxury.

    As an app developer and UX expert, use colors strategically to evoke specific emotions. For example, if you are developing apps/websites for restaurant businesses, a combination of yellow and red can do wonders. Pale green and sky blue can work very well with a stock market app as green symbolize prosperity and blue are often associated with trust.

    Graphics is another means of enhancing the user experience. But the wrong kind of graphics can interrupt the flow, downgrading the quality of overall experience.

    Animation inspired graphics schemes, for example, are your bet for gaming apps and B2C apps. Conservative graphics and charts, often associated with stability, are the better choices for finance related apps/mobile websites.

    Evoke trust:

    The end goal of developing mobile websites and apps is to make a business out of those. If you fail to gain the trust of your users, your mobile marketing efforts will fail.

    Yes, there are shady apps which involve secret billing, but those are far from any reliable means of building a sustainable business.

    Good design is the first step of the building trust. Before asking someone to complete an action, make every effort to help them understand why the task is needed and offer ways if they want to discontinue at any stage. Being honest and clear in explanations builds trust at each step and leads to increasingly easier conversions down the sales funnel.

    You customer may have some hesitation regarding the online transaction. As a UX developer, you should ensure their privacy, explicitly explain the steps and lead them through the payment process.

    Streamline workflow:

    Forrester analyst Leah Buley once quoted, “The magic is no longer in the machine; it’s in the machine’s ability to make the life better”. This holds true for mobile app/website as well. The more simplicity you can bring to your user, more delighted the user will be.

    Simpler workflow doesn’t mean doing different things rather doing things differently. Walk in your client’s shoe.  If you feel any feature is complicated, tiring or boring, simply change it.

    For example, while signing up, some individuals feel typing email and password on the same page quite annoying. You can split it into two different pages; first for submitting email and the second one for password submission. It’s a simple tweak, yet can offer a much better user experience.

    Another example, some applications have features to save payment information of the users so that they don’t have to insert payment info from the next time. Such features save users’ time and provide comfort. In return, users start to trust such convenient apps and become loyal customers.

    In a nutshell, building thoughtful apps with clear intention shows that you care for your users. If you can make your users realize that you care for them by providing smooth user-experience, they will be more than happy to return and even recommend your app to their peers.

    In conclusion, great user experience and trust are what make any app successful. It’s quite easy to judge the user experience of your app/mobile website as long as you are honest with yourself. Ask yourself, if you were someone with the same background as your users’, would you click the next option and feel delighted?