How to Design an App?

Application design or app design refers to a process of designing the interactions of a user with an application and the application interface. Designing is an integral part of the overall design process. Your design is responsible for communicating your mission and your product/service to your users, it is largely responsible for user retention, and user experience and may decide the fate of an application. In this article, we will discuss the process of designing an app and will discuss the best practices for doing so.

How to Design an App?

App Design

Application design or app design refers to a process of designing the interactions of a user with an application and the application interface. A good application design enables the user to easily navigate through the application resulting in higher user retention and user satisfaction. Application design can be divided into two parts:

1. UI design: UI design or User Interface design is the process of creating the visual interfaces for a software application. There are lots of businesses where a designer will play both parts, but there are also lots of designers who specialize in UI design. UI designers help users to navigate an interface by using visual clues.
2. UX design: UX design or User Experience design is the process of creating the experiences or the interactions that a user has with a product. The basic principle of UX design is to keep the needs of the user prior and improve the interaction of the user and the product keeping this in mind.

How to Design an App?

Designing an application involves of a lot of processes, we can bifurcate the process of application designing into three important steps:

1. User Research: The first step of application designing is user research. There’s a lot of information that will be gathered so the designer has to analyse the information, understand the trend, and organize data using tools to identify trends and patterns in that data. The role of the designer is to create reports and presentations to present that complex information to other people in the team. Researching about the customers gives valuable insights about the product/service and what things should be improved.
2. Wireframing and Prototyping: The second step of the application design is Wireframes and Prototypes. But what are these Wireframes? Wireframes are detailed structural sketches that illustrate a concept. A wireframe for a digital product is similar to a blueprint for a house. Wireframe clearly illustrates how the product functions and the core elements of its design.
3. Visual Designing and testing: The final step in application designing process is to Visually design the interface using the prototypes and wireframes and test it. In this particular step the designer comes up with creative and innovative design solutions keeping in mind the wireframing and prototypes created before. He/she designs the User Interface and creates different visual touch points and establish the interactivity with them. Along with that the interfaces are tested and iterated upon the shortcomings.

Best Practices

• Wireframing is half way through: Wireframing done right leaves a very less scope of things going wrong in the User Interface. A perfect website of application structure can make or break your design which in turn reflects in user experience as well as user interface.
• Content Hierarchy and Organization: When you are designing an application, make sure that the content Hierarchy and the organization of content is in such a way that the USP – every application or software has a Unique Selling Proposition, Make sure to highlight this unique selling proposition.
• Consistency: In some cases, the user experience of the app and the experience of the website or that of the product they offer defers from one another. It might depend upon the stage of the company/startup or the market but the user should not find the product to be completely different from the branding website or application.
• User feedback and iterating: Taking feedback from the users can provide valuable insights about the design of the app and what things should be improved. In order to continuously improve the application (even beyond design) we have to that user feedback and iterate our design.
• For the user interface part, Focus on these best Practices:
  • Contrast: Contrast helps the User Interface in establishing the content/visual hierarchy, emphasizing a focal point and adding visual interest.
  • Alignment and Proximity: Alignment is direction of element flow and Proximity is closeness of the elements. Alignment and proximity brings order in unordered typography.
  • Repetition: Repetition is basically how many times patterns, visuals, or other properties are being repeating in the UI to give user an application that is easy to navigate.

Conclusion

We can conclude this article with the thought that no matter how good your application is, without a proper packaging and without a proper appeal, it simply won’t sell. As much as development process is important in a product lifecycle, application design plays an equally important role. application design is not just about choosing the right contrast colors or using better visual elements. It’s also about conveying your message to the user in the simplest way possible. It is about providing an experience that remains in the mind of the user.