With all the buzz around, the mobile application market is exploding. Experts at Statista say there will be a projected 7.49 billion mobile users worldwide by 2025. In 2021 alone, global app downloads made 230 billion in numbers.
Mobile app developers consider certain aspects during the app development process to sustain market presence and credibility in today’s competitive business world. Let’s have a look at 3 crucial steps that you can utilize to create convincing mobile app designs that speak for themselves.
1. Perform a consumer analysis
During the initial phase of the mobile application workflow, you must first decide the platform (Android, iOS, or both) on which you will run the application. To set up a platform, it is crucial to know your target demographic and do an analysis of their platform preferences, which may vary by geography and income level. The process becomes effortless if you seek assistance from qualified user experience experts specializing in mobile app design.
Once you are done with identifying the platform(s) to pursue, you should get rolling with the development approach. Here are some development models you would want to adopt for creating your mobile app design:
Native Development: Sticking to the traditional roots
Simply put, a native application is a mobile application developed in a specific programming language like Java or Objective-C for mobile operating systems (iOS or Android OS). This implies that if an application is exclusively available for Android, it will not appear in the App Store and would not function on an iOS device.
Here the app’s UX and UI design should be in one-to-one correspondence with the platform’s key requirements so that its look and feel remain consistent like any other factory application for that platform. Although this development strategy could sometimes be costly, it yields greater user satisfaction levels.
Hybrid Development: Merging native & web apps
Hybrid applications are a combination of native and web-based apps where the application’s core is written with web technologies. This type of development calls for the UX and UI design to be identical across platforms, requiring teams to chip in their input collectively. A rare downside would be users not being familiar with the app design initially. However, it allows for greater expenditure savings as compared to other development models.
Cross-platform development: Going near-ideal
Cross-platform development gives you the power to create mobile applications in a universal language like JavaScript, Kotlin, or Flutter and then export them to a variety of smartphone devices. This way, you can deploy a “single app” to operate in multiple ecosystems or mobile operating platforms.
Using cross-platform mobile app design sustains coherence between UX and UI design, although it is important to consider that this approach requires a considerable cost incorporated in the development process.
2. Crafting the user experience
User experience (UX) design is diverse and impacts the offerings consumers use on a routine basis. UX designers have to incorporate market research, product development, strategy, and design to create personalized user experiences for their workflow. They play an intermediary role between the business and the intended customer, leveraging companies to maximize value for their end-users.
The user experience process incorporates hypothetical identities and user personas to simulate how your target audience will interact with the app. This helps the mobile app designer to establish what users your consumer wants to accomplish when they use the product, allowing them to create precise hand-drawn or digital wireframes that depict the interaction between users and the mobile app. Depending on the functionality of your application, mobile app design demands 5-7 consumer identities with at least two distinct user scenarios.
3. UI design prototyping
The wireframes created during the UX design stage act as key to navigating further in the design process for your UI team. The company’s visual identity such as colors, typeface, and branding requirements are mixed with the platform and current trends to transform typical wireframes into a digital prototype.
Moving on in the design cycle, these prototypes are essential for modeling the user experience and workflow of the end product. It becomes critical to thoroughly inspect each design aspect to point out issues that could influence the app to avoid additional future costs. Once you are satisfied with the design, you are all set to enter the development phase.
Conquering the right customers
Mobile application design is a series of ongoing processes involving ideation, conceptualization, user analysis, user experience testing, and prototyping. Each project will have unique characteristics that are centered around a different type of consumer base so make sure to perform your audience analysis wisely, followed by the user experience testing and prototyping phase. Utilizing the aforementioned 3 phases for the mobile app design process will help ensure your development and go-live is a complete success.
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