Importance of UI/UX Design in the Development of Mobile Apps.

What is UI design?

The most simple definition of User interface (UI) is any content users can interact with to utilize digital products or services. This content includes everything from screens and touch screens, keyboards, sounds, and even lights. However, to understand the development of UI, it is beneficial to know its history and how it evolved into best practices and expertise.

Posted: 26 Aug, 2020

A brief history of UI:

In the 1970s, using a computer required that a person used the command line interface. By the 1980s, computer scientists at Xerox PARC developed the first graphical user interface (GUI). This breakthrough provided users a more intuitive experience by allowing them to submit commands through icons, buttons, menus, and checkboxes on their personal computers. By 1984, Apple Computer released the Macintosh personal computer, which included a mouse click. The Macintosh was the first commercially successful home computer to use this interface. The accessibility and popularity of personal computers and office computers gave birth to the field of designing user interfaces.

What is UX Design?

The improvements with user interface (UI) gave way to the development of the user experience (UX). That is, the creation of the GUI gave users of personal computers an actual product to interact with, changing their experience with the machine. With this development emerged the term "user experience," coined by cognitive scientist Don Norman in the 1990s, when he was working at Apple. Presently, there are a plethora of definitions. For this article, UX is defined as,

“all aspects of the interaction between the end-user and the company, its services, and products.”

This is a broad definition that can cover every interaction that a consumer may have with a product or service, not just a digital experience. Some UX professionals choose to call UX the live customer experience, while others further refer to it live as experience design. UX design considers every element that shapes the consumer experience, the feeling it brings to users, and how easy it is for users to complete a required task. From the feel of the physical product in the user’s hands to the simplicity of the checkout process when purchasing items online, it’s all-encompassing. The goal of UX design is to create a relaxed, efficient, relevant, and comprehensive experience for users.

What's the difference between UI and UX?

At the most basic level, the UI consists of all the elements that enable someone to interact with the product or service. On the other hand, UX is what the individual interacting with the product or service gets from the entire experience. Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen sum it up well when they assert:

“Even if the user interface is clearly an extremely important part of the design, it is important to distinguish the overall user experience from the user interface (UI). For example, consider a website with movie reviews. Even if the UI for finding movies is perfect, if the underlying database only contains movies from major movie studios, then the UX will be terrible for users who want a small amount of independent release information.”

Importance of UI/UX design in the success of App/Website:

Today, there are millions of mobile apps on the app store. Some are successful, while others find it difficult to compete in the highly saturated marketplace. All successful mobile applications, however, have one thing in common—they all have a look and feel that appeals to users. All users look for attractive, as well as initiative applications. Attractive visual applications are usually the result of efficient user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). The best mobile application developers will tell you that while developing an application, it is also important to emphasize its Ul/UX design because this is the beginning of the application's success.

Reasons Why Your App Needs an Efficient Ul/UX Design

As mentioned above, creators of applications should always prioritize an effective UI/UX design. This requires in-depth research and advanced planning to understand the needs of users and the problems the application intends to solve. The following are the reasons why you need to consider UI/UX principles when developing an application:

• It enhances customer satisfaction hence improved ROI
  An outstanding design provides customers with engaging content and easy navigation, making customers happy with your application service. Satisfied customers will always recommend an app to others, leading to organic growth for a company. In addition, good UI/UX engenders brand loyalty.
• Helps you understand your audience
  Before creating Ul/UX, you must understand the customer's needs. With this, your design will focus on the target audience. Creating a user profile that takes into consideration what will appeal to your end-user is pivotal to your app’s success. Moreover, Ul/UX allows for segmenting your audience, which is essential for understanding the needs of each segment. Knowing your audience can easily turn potential customers into loyal patrons.
• Builds your brand
  Investing in efficient Ul/UX design can help increase customer satisfaction and thus obtain satisfied customers. People like to work with brands that make them happy. They will be more willing to point out features that can be upgraded, so you will invest in improving the application. When customers build a good relationship with your company and brand, this will improve your business' credibility. The result is an increase in business and brand value.

How Ul/UX Design Makes Your Mobile App Successful?

Mobile app users like easy to use and more attractive apps. The most successful applications (such as WhatsApp) have provided users with seamless navigation and an engaging interface. Developing an application with effective UI/UX design is the starting point for having a successful application. This is as most app users prefer apps that are visually appealing and user-friendly to apps that are powerful but not very attractive. The excellent interface gives users a realistic feel while using your application. It also provides them with a continuous flow of valuable information. More and more users will become interested in your application, which will bring organic traffic. This increases the conversion rate, thereby increasing the brand name. Therefore, an experienced UI/UX designer must be hired to ensure that a mobile application is interactive and enjoyable for users.

Important Ul/UX Design Aspects to Consider in the Development of Mobile Apps

Important aspects of Ul/UX need to be improved to improve the visual appearance of applications and functions. These include:

• Retain Uniformity
  You should always ensure that the layout of your application is consistent across all platforms. Consistent application design can increase familiarity with the application. This allows users to easily interact with your application.
• Use a Simple Design
  In order to increase the user's interest in your application, you should design it to provide excellent services with minimal investment. This can also improve the usability of the application and the loyalty of users to the application. Disorganized applications can make navigation difficult and keep users away. Therefore, it is necessary to design an application that is easy to navigate while following simple steps.
• Provide Fast Loading Speed
  Speed is an important aspect of your UI/UX design. Users want to save time; thus, they prefer applications with a short loading span. Ideally, a good application should load within a few seconds before users can consider migrating to another application. The longer your application loads, the more users it will inevitably lose.
• Use Standard Elements
  In order to increase user confidence and familiarity with the application, you should use standard symbols, colors, buttons, and icons. Users will not need any other guidelines on how to use the mobile application. As a result, users will find your app easy to use and therefore have a great user experience. This will make more users like your app and recommend it to their network.
• Make it More Interactive
  To gain more success, consider making your app more interactive. In addition to appearance, interactive applications are easy to navigate. Some of the key elements of interactive applications include colors, icons, location. Make sure to add a few brand-related colors to the app; however, too many colors will reduce the visual appeal of the application. The more attractive and easy to navigate your app is, the more users it will attract.