5 Key Steps for Designing your App

Every product goes through an ever-evolving design phase. Designing an application can be an uphill battle with hurdles and obstacles. Planning every step can make this process smoother and more efficient. You might have to step back and assess your structure to see if you are building a solid foundation for your app design by following the best practices.

"The design process is best defined by the Action-centric Perspective method. The approach involves defining and solving problems simultaneously. Design is a creative improvisation, where the designer goes back and forth between defining the problem, designing, and evaluating the problem."

Agata Cieślar, UX Senior Expert at ING

You need to keep into account the accessibility of your customers. Therefore, your top priority should be meeting your customers' goals. In addition, your customers' needs might change; therefore, you will have to develop robust solutions to keep your App up to date and maintain app design best practices.

With the guide below, you can navigate the steps through designing your app.

1. Understanding your Goals

Keeping the initial goals in mind is key for creating your ideal application.
Start the process by asking yourself who, what & why. This helps you set your goals and have a strategy.

You need to answer all the necessary questions, such as

• Who are your targeted customers?
• What does your application offer?
• Why are you redesigning your application?
• How will the user interact with your application?
  

After establishing a rationale, keeping it in the loop while designing the application is crucial to stay on track.

2. User Research

All Apps have one thing in common: to serve their users and provide them with the best service possible. Therefore communicating with the users and researching before designing any app is vital. You can't assume anything; the user experience is about the user, not you. What you might think is easy to use, the user might find tacky. This is why it can be a huge disaster if you don't do enough research and test your product before the launch.

Interview potential users, show your prototype to different people, and note any suggestions or hurdles they might have faced. Then, incorporate that design into your application and keep testing even after the launch. So you can improve the application and remove any hurdle your user faces.

Research your competition

Along with user research, it is essential to conduct competitive research. In this, you will explore the strengths and weaknesses of the products that are similar to yours. With the help of this research, you will be able to analyze the shortcomings of your competitors, and you can foresee what your design features can facilitate your potential users.

3. Finding Solutions

When you have pinpointed your potential customers' problems or pain points, you need to devise a simple solution to their problems. Keeping your design simple is the key to having the best user experience possible. Your goal as a designer is to provide the user with the most effortless flowing user interface with no obstacles.

Maintain consistency in your design content:

Regarding mobile app design, you must remember that your user interface's consistency should be a priority. Your users should be able to navigate through your app quickly and know where they are in the app at all times. You must stay consistent with the app's color theme, typography, and iconography to achieve that. A great example of this practice is Google Apps, the next time you go through the Google Apps, notice how the buttons, colors, and controls are placed in the same position throughout the series of apps.

Pay close attention to breathing space:

You need to understand how to use harmful or breathing space in your application. As it is evident from the name, breathing space helps your user’s eyes rest while using your app. With the help of negative space, you can pull users’ attention and focus on the design or content you are providing. Breathing space creates a sense of harmony and balance in any design.

Aim for an easy onboarding:

After the user downloads your app, the initial moments are crucial for your app to succeed. If the onboarding process is too complicated or confusing, the user will leave the app and not return. Therefore you need to keep in mind the skill set of your users, put yourself in their shoes and create diverse personas for user research before finalizing your app.

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4. Monitor User Behavior

After you have put together an app that you have spent months researching, designing, and developing, the final step of launching can be nerve-racking. This step determines if your hard work has paid off or not. But your work won't be done after the launch; the most crucial part is after the launch.

First, you must monitor your users' responses and analyze how people interact with your App. With the help of this data, you can further improve your design and interface, which is always an ongoing process. You won't finish the improvement process, especially in today's fast-paced world.

To be on top of your game, you must release frequent updates to your App based on data gathered from user behavior. Perform the best App design practices to give users the ultimate experience. You have to aim to give them what they might not even know they need.

5. Design iterations

You might have noticed drastic changes in app design among popular applications after being launched. This is because they never stopped looking to improve their application. In this fast pace technology world, you are never done with the iteration process. An excellent example of iterations of design is Instagram. When Instagram gave its application a more updated design, it kept its initial goal in mind and transformed it into an app that was more in line with the trends and design of the current times. They wanted their users to have a platform to share their pictures, videos, stories, etc. So they changed their Logo altogether and the User Interface. They created several iterations for the User interface and came up with one that solely focused on the users' posts. They kept the background simple, so the colors of the posts pop, and the users share their posts, which brightens their feed. They also kept in mind that the App would be used on iOS and Andriod devices; therefore, they paired down new interactions that were in sync with iOS and Andriod's fonts, components, and patterns.

Conclusion

There are some basic steps you can follow to Design your App, but what you need to keep in mind all the time is what is your initial goal. What service are you providing your customers, and is your design inclusive enough for all users? You will be good to go if you put your users first when designing your user interface.

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