Millions of dollars are spent on creating the best user experience for customers – whether it is through a website, or a mobile app. Designs curated need to be intuitive, creative, and enjoyable.

One of the ideal ways to achieve or improve an app’s user experience is to start from the very beginning. From understanding why, you need to provide a good user experience to learning about user behaviours, the basics matter.

The Importance of Good UX

Why is it essential to understand the significance of good UX (user experience)? For bad UX can make your brand an ‘unused application’ and that will be the death of brand loyalty.

A positive UX can increase user satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty, while a poor UX can result in frustration, abandonment, and negative reviews. A well-designed UX can also improve efficiency, accessibility, and usability, leading to increased productivity and revenue.

Previously, we have gone deeper about why good UX is essential and why you need it.

Good UX or a visually appealing design is known to have a positive impact on customers as a seamless experience can boost customer satisfaction. This in turn, can also help retain loyal customers through positive purchasing decisions.

Ultimately, it all starts with good UX and ends with a satisfied customer who will become your brand advocate.

Improving an App’s UX

The basic steps to improve an app’s UX revolve around specifics commonly associated with user behaviour. When designing, you need to follow a level of consistency. Here are some of the UX features that you could consider for your app to shine.

Conducting UX research

Research becomes important in industries where change is constant. The UX UI industry is no stranger here because every month or year, you either have new tools for designing or new trends that are changing it all for good.

Due to that, the importance of conducting research cannot be undermined. Without research, you will be behind the competition and won’t be able to keep your users up to date. Furthermore, since AI (Artificial Intelligence) is increasingly getting popular, only through thorough research can you understand the progress.

Conducting research also means understanding what your competition is up to and how they can generate user experiences for their customers. This way, you can look at notable changes between your brand and theirs.

Considering the fact that you also have professionals like UX researchers, it is easy to understand the significance of research in our day and time.

Assess UX trends

Related to research will be assessing the pulse of the market. Making UX improvements without understanding the ongoing trends is like working without having a clear objective. One needs to be up to date about the current UX trends to suggest improvements.

You can gain insights about ongoing changes to app installations, session duration, uninstallation, and more by examining peers and competitors. With this data, you can check other metrics, such as Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU).

By combining the data, you have collected, you can introduce new features to users to stay with UX trends. Once the features are locked and loaded, you can continue usability testing to ensure that the new features are in line to optimize the user experience.

Optimize the search feature

The point of opening an application is to achieve something or to take action. Be it the purchase of a product or receiving information; users want to gain something a thing or two from your app. And that means you must have a top-notch search feature.

A search feature, that needs to be processed right from the development stage of an app, is vital for users to find links and improve the usability of your app. However, if your app includes poor navigation, the effects will be drastic and to the point where users look for alternatives.

Mobile heat-maps

Mobile heat-maps are an important feature as it uses visual representations to showcase the most engaging elements of your app. These heat-maps visually tell you what is working or not for your app.

They also shed light on which are the more effective buttons, giving you an idea of what to change about your app’s UX. This way, you can target specific areas of your app and look to improve the UX effectively.

Moreover, the added information you receive from session recordings will further explain why people are avoiding your app.

Mobile app session recordings

Session recordings are known to be a fundamental step in improving app UX as it takes you closer to user behaviour. These recordings highlight how users scroll through your app, what they click on, and, more importantly, how they interact with your app.

You also have filters to choose from, so you can be more specific with the information you want to gain. There are two main types of filters that you need to know. Location-based filters will involve the IP address and country, and event-based filters will involve page scrolls, add-to-cart clicks, and so on.

Once you have locked in on the filters that are right for you, it is time to look inwards:

1. Understand software glitches and remove the same to improve user experience.
2. Examine mobile app design inefficiencies and prevent users from facing any struggle.
3. Rectify coding errors and bugs to provide a seamless experience.
4. Examine the interactive quotient of your mobile app and understand what works for you.

With such insights, you can also frame a new information architecture and use those points to help in UX designing.

Funnel analysis

It is all about understanding your user’s behaviour a bit more. Through Funnel Analysis you can record the flow of visitors to a website or app in relation to conversions. It tracks the user journey and helps you look into different ways to understand the needs for optimisation.

Since the results are meant for specific funnel sets, you can use them to identify barriers that prevent people from purchasing a product or performing an action on your app. In doing so, you are bound to witness benefits like those mentioned below.

1. Funnel analysis can determine where high-quality visitors come from.
2. These analyses will also highlight where visitors are leaving, thus leaving room for you to analyse what needs to be changed on your app.
3. With the information you receive from funnel analysis, you can also make key decisions affecting your business’s stakeholders.

In-app messaging

In-app messaging is a sure shot way to make your app more interactive and approachable. It acts as the first level of problem solving for customer-related issues. The feature doesn’t just adhere to subscribers but all users.

It does a fine job of communicating the value of your app and also convinces users to make a purchase or perform a definitive action. Moreover, in-app messaging comes loaded with suggestions for every situation.

1. It provides key reminders about pending items in carts.
2. Requests push notifications without making any code changes.
3. Raises the user experience with carousel posts that also include prompts.
4. Implements surveys to gain customer feedback.
5. Requests users to rate the app.

Top Mobile UX Trends to Be Aware of in 2023

The rise of AI in designing

The use of AI in designing has been a long time coming. We already have generative AI technology that can be found in Photoshop’s Face-Aware Liquify feature, in Illustrator’s Global Edit Tool and more.

By using AI, designers are already analysing user requirements and moving forward to create client-centric products. It all comes down to providing a highly personalised user experience, and with more AI-based tools in the pipeline, AI and UX will be collaborating in the future.

Be it for apps or websites, UX designers can always rely on AI, although experts suggest that things are yet to reach their full potential. So, look for AI to create waves in UX design as it stands tall as one of the top trends in 2023.

Migrating from Adobe to Figma

Developing a mobile app requires using design-centric tools that provide the resources to help you navigate a good user interface. Designers, based on their requirements, will work on prototypes, look to gamify an app to increase guest engagement, and do a lot more.

But when it comes to the type of tools they use, the answer may lie between Adobe XD and Figma, although a significant trend for 2023 suggests that Figma may be preferred. With the $20 Billion takeover of Figma by Adobe, users were led to believe that Figma may die out.

However, according to Dylan Field, Figma’s CEO, and co-founder, the application is expected to operate autonomously. Figma could be used more, thanks to the inclusion of Adobe’s technology in specific aspects such as machine learning, digital imaging, etc.

Since Figma is also the preferred route for a collaborative tool, it could mean the end of the road for Adobe.

More motion designing

Motion designing wasn’t always considered the right way to optimise the user experience. In the past, if a particular app had motion graphics or animations, the development team would reduce the quality and size of the application as they focused on increasing the app’s speed.

But in the era of 5G, such problems are non-existent; thus, motion designing has become a trending topic. Designers can now create stunning animations as it keeps the apps more engaged and plays a vital role in developing the user experience.

With motion graphics, you can

1. Modulate a cost-effective approach for developing an app’s UX.
2. Formulate your app into an established brand as the shareable quotient of your app increases.
3. Engage more with your user for 85% of customers prefer video content.
4. Increase traffic, as animation or motion graphics are always seen as a medium to have more leads.

Scrolling + Storytelling = Scrollytelling

Narratives are a part of everything. From story books for little children to even brand formations, everything has a narrative. And in 2023, amidst design trends like the Hover Effect, you also have Scrollytelling, a delightful combination of scrolling and storytelling.

Considering the current generation’s obsession with scrolling, this trend aims to provide a visual narrative that keeps expanding as you keep on scrolling. Be it through videos, images, animations, or other graphics, a story will be conveyed, and that can also be considered a lead generator.

Common Mobile UX Design Mistakes

Overloading the interface

UX design mistakes are standard but are also avoidable. And the best way to ensure that your app is free of such clutters is to be aware of them before designing your app. One of the common mistakes in this regard is filling your interfaces with buttons, videos, text, images, etc.

While your interface does require these, you don’t have to overload them with these actionable features, as your user may need clarification. In the age of minimalism, overloading your interface is unnecessary.

So always remember this error and note it in your not-to-do list while designing a mobile app.

Wrong use of jargon

Keeping communication between brands and users simple and direct leaves less room for confusion. Apart from using brand-specific terms, you should also ensure that the rest of the content aligns with the brand’s image and is understandable to a general audience.

The only way one can go wrong in this regard is through the wrong use of jargon. Vague phrases and terms are a terrible example of improving user experience and can also reduce the number of users for your app.

Missing CTAs

CTAs or Call to Action informs users about the next move and convinces them to perform a small task. These small visual buttons are meant to drive leads and take the app to greater lengths, which is an important part of UX.

1. Read more / learn more
2. Click here
3. Sign up
4. Join us and subscribe

These are some of the most common CTAs used from time to time.

Forgetting about app architecture

Mobile app architecture includes the rules, patterns, and other requirements that frame a mobile application. When put together, these rules provide a definitive pattern and keep the developer informed about the size of the app, which later dictates the cost of an app.

While following a well-defined structure helps you enter a smooth flow, going against the same could lead to many problems. Due to that, forgetting about app architecture is another mistake that people tend to commit.

Conclusion

The basics that improve an app’s UX are also the critical ones that help you set up a solid design foundation. Conversely, if an app lacks a few things, you will immediately be aware of the same through feedback, lack of conversion, and more.

And now that you are aware of all the proper steps in improving the user experience, put them to use and look towards exploring results.

FAQs

What are the basic principles for improving user experience?

The basic principles to improve user experience can be divided into

• Consistent design
• Conducting UX research and a
• UX audit

Consistent design – users often expect products to be similar to what they have used in the past. So, based on the type of product, designs can either stick to usual patterns and be developed over time, or designs can be different from one another and continue to be developed over time.

Conducting UX research – there’s always a new trend, a new feature, or a new design tool that UX developers could get their hands on. It is a field always going through changes, thus marking the importance of conducting UX research.

With UX research, you can be informed about the current happenings and look to implement the same in an app.

UX audit – a UX Audit, along with research, keeps you informed about where your designs stand with the current trends. As a cost-free approach to analyzing the current trends, a UX Audit adds insights and helps you add more value to user experience.

What are the 7 key factors of user experience?

Creating the perfect user experience journey involves following a set of key factors that aim to provide the best output. And in that sense, there are close to 7 critical factors for user experience, and they are:

• Useful – ensuring designs have a purpose.
• Findable – ensuring the product is easy to find.
• Credible – ensuring the product is trustworthy.
• Usable – ensuring the fact that users achieve their objectives.
• Desirable – ensuring that designs stand out.
• Accessible – ensuring users have complete access and
• Valuable – ensuring the product is of some value.

What are the 5 key concepts of user experience design?

The 5 key concepts of user experience design are

• Scale – sticking to a specific size.
• Balance – perfecting the right amount of visual balance.
• Visual grading – following a close pattern with design elements.
• Contrast – showcasing what is different about the ensemble.
• Gestalt principles – the principles referring to our perception of the design.

What is mobile user experience (UX) design?

Mobile UX refers to the user experience design of smartphones, hand-held devices, and wearables.

How can I improve my mobile UX?

Improving mobile UX involves a series of steps, including reviewing your current design against new trends, analysing for errors, following the basic principles of design, and implementing new design elements that the market considers significant.