Observing the continuously rising demand for iOS, Android and other app markets, mobile applications have become a necessity than just a passing trend. If you’re interested in building an app, then you need to know about the app-specific rules. Most importantly, you need to remember that the line between a website and a mobile application has blurred, as HTML5 and CSS3 web technologies combined with JavaScript are facilitating desktop-like interactions within the sites and apps.
Here are a few key considerations app designers should keep in mind while designing mobile apps:
1. Mobile App or Mobile Website – Which Option to Choose?
The very first thing you need is to weigh your options – figure out whether you need a mobile app, just a mobile site, or both? Below are a few questions that you should ask yourself before beginning with the app designing process, to make the distinction:
- Are you having a website with a set of rich features? If yes, then what features you’ll like to integrate into your application? In case your mobile application is going to be an exact replica of your app, it would be better if you’ll consider building a mobile site first.
- Would you like your app to be coupled with mobile operating components, like the mail client, dialer and others? In that case, creating a native app will best suit your needs.
So, if you’ve made up your mind on creating a mobile app, then the below mentioned key points will prove beneficial for the app designing process.
2. Evaluate Your App Usage
If you want to build a native app, then the first thing you should consider is how your application is going to be utilized. It’s obvious, deciding how and where your mobile app will be used can impact its design.
For instance, if you want to create an app that allows users to “buy” and “sell” products, then it is very important that it contains large buttons (like “shop now”, “add to cart”, etc.), as shown below:
- Mobile Application Development
Note: No matter, what sort of app you’re designing keep in mind that the text is easy to read and legible. Also, the buttons and links must be readable and easily accessible
3. Consider Different Screen Sizes
Remember that even when designing an app for the same mobile platform, both the screen size as well as resolutions can vary depending on the device used to access the app. For example, iPhone 6/ iPhone 6 Plus has higher resolution than iPhone 5S and other iPhone displays.
Although, there isn’t any difference in the pixel density of iPhone 5S and iPhone 6, but the screen quality of 6 and 6 Plus is definitely better than 5S. And so, you’ll need to design an app that fits any screen sizes of iPhone displays easily.
But more than focusing on designing an app for the iPhone displays, you’ll probably have to pay more attention when designing an Android app. Just as you know, Android platform runs on a wide range of device hardware. Thankfully, the Android Developers website offers an excellent guide, exploring multiple Android device screens. Additionally, it also lets you know how you can achieve screen independence in the best manner, so that your designed apps look great and work properly on different display types.
What’s more? The Android Developers official website also provides tips regarding testing an application in different resolutions using an emulator.
4. UI Design Considerations
The success of your app does not merely depend on how visually appealing the app design is, but it also relies upon usability. One great way to increase the usability of an application requires designers to follow UI design guidelines. Each major mobile platform contains some specific UI guidelines (i.e. collection of recommendations) that webmasters ought to follow when designing an app interface.
Though, you don’t need to abide by these guidelines completely, but sticking to them will help in making the application easier to understand by users. The Android UI team has developed its own set of UI guidelines. Even though it’s not complete, the conventions include complete overviews of widget, icon, widget, activity and several other design guidelines.
On the other hand, Apple provides a detailed overview of UI design basic as a part of the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines.
5. Adding Touch Gestures
As we had discussed that the line between an app and website is blurring, and users are expecting seamless navigation experience while accessing an application on their Smartphone just like a website. And designing your mobile application with touch-gestures play a vital role in delivering interactive experiences across all device types.
You need to think about – how you hold your phone to view the screen and how your thumb moves. Keeping in mind these factors, you can design an app layout with touch-enabled gestures like pulling-down to refresh, swipe back and forth, etc.
Wrapping Up!
If you’re about to start working on your app development project, then there are several tools available online that can assist you in native or hybrid app creation. Some of these tools are PhoneGap, Appcelerator, RhoMobile, etc. Using these tools can help save a lot of your development time, and make the app designing process a lot easier. But before picking any of these tools, it is imperative to go through the aforementioned key points to get an idea of how you should design a mobile app.
Author Bio: Victoria Brinsley is a skilled mobile app programmer for Appsted Ltd – a reliable Android development company. You can explore more about the development tips and tricks by clearing your queries with her.
