Designing: A key to wonders in application development

We all have heard the famous saying, “First impression is the last impression”. A well-designed website or mobile application is instrumental in making not only that first impression but also a lasting impression on the user. Proper designing is very crucial to both websites and mobile applications.

You may argue that the most important aspect is the functionality but in today’s times of online marketing, the presentation is equally important. It is a great way of attracting users to your site or mobile application. Websites and mobile applications are also excellent marketing tools. You know, how important it is to market, to sell.

Importance of design for websites

Your website is the face of your organization online. It really helps, if the website is well designed. An elegant and user-friendly website is really an asset and provides you a much-needed competitive advantage. A non-user-friendly web design is bound to drive users away from your website. Let us now have a look at some aspects which should be taken care of while developing a great design:

• Easy navigation – You can be innovative in your navigation design, but it should always be borne in mind, that the navigation must be easy. If it is too complex, the users might just leave your site and switch to your competitors. You must be having great information, but it is futile if it cannot arrive easily.
  Some websites have many pages and so it is very important that the navigation be well designed to traverse such large information. Great websites have intuitive navigation.
• Effective design elements- You can experiment with fonts, colors, and graphics but only if the design remains user-friendly. It should not clutter up your website.
• Logical – It is very important for a website to be logically designed. All pages must be coherent. Moreover, there should be consistency in the design of the pages. If each page is differently designed, users might get confused and leave the website.
• Effective customer service – One of the major functionality that really helps gain user’s trust and admiration is great customer service. You must pay special attention to this aspect of your website. Good customer service not only engages users, makes them stay longer but also is instrumental in moving the customer down your sales funnel. As you begin to know about your users’ requirement, implement the same in your design making it more and more close to what your users require.
• Dealing with competition – Your website is a very important tool to cope up with the competition. Although, in any industry, the basic offerings are the same and industries even draw their information from the same pool of resources. A well-designed website helps you to present the data in a unique way. This way a great design can help you fight competition.
• SEO friendly – SEO is big these days. It plays a very crucial role in pushing your site up in search engine ranking. The content and the coding must be SEO friendly. Use keywords and Meta tags wisely, which search engines like Google and Bing can easily crawl. This increases the visibility of your website.
• Use your logo – If your company has a logo or trademark, make sure to use it on your website. It helps in building brand recognition. The logo must be same across all platforms i.e. print and website etc.
• Quality content – A crisp and relevant content attracts many visitors. Users generally do not spend much time going through lengthy pages.
• Include call to action and USP– Correctly placed call to actions like buy-now on the website, would further increase the customer base. Also include your USPs (Unique Selling Proposition) on your website, to further attract users.

Merits of a great web design

If you have a well-designed website, it will make the users navigate your site more. Most users would quickly leave a poorly designed website. A quality design would let you earn more ROI than you would expect. A well-designed website also provides for further development.

Importance of design for mobile applications

Mobile applications or mobile apps, as we call them, are designed to run on your smartphones or tablets without the requirement of any web browser interface. In a similar fashion as the website, the design of a mobile application is also very critical. Presently, there are more mobile users in the world then there are desktop users. Users today have numerous options to choose from so it is very important to stand out from the crowd. This is possible by providing great usability with a great design.

When we talk about the design of any mobile application, we talk in terms of UI and UX. UI stands for User Interface while UX is the User Experience.

Let’s first look at what UI is?

UI is the overall look of the application and how it interacts with a user. It is graphical and mostly touches sensitive. Besides being good to look, the UI must also be easy to use and fulfill a user’s requirements.

A word about UX

UX is the overall feel provided by the mobile application. The very purpose of UX is to provide a satisfying experience to the user. The application should be user-friendly and usable. The user and mobile application interaction must be effortless.

UI/UX must together make a mobile application have utility, usability, and desirability. Now let’s have a look at all the things to be kept in mind while designing a mobile application:

• Move away from web design principles – Mobile UI/UX features are different from web design. So, follow the UI/UX conventions and not those followed in web design. Another thing to be kept in mind is that if you have both a website and a mobile application they must complement each other in terms of design and other features.
• Intuitive – This is one of the most important things to be followed. Make the design as simple as possible. It should be user-friendly so that the user is able to easily understand and explore. You can experiment with colors, fonts, 3D effects and buttons but it should be to the extent that the users find pleasing.
• Give screen size its due importance – Design your mobile application to lets the users use it conveniently using their thumbs, even on larger screens.
• Swipe – Swipe is new, popular and intuitive. Use it because people love it!
• Engage professional - Engage a professional who can provide a great UI/UX for your mobile application. Get a design which is easy to use, uniform and fast.
• Some other design features – Add tooltips for easier navigation. Aid where it is very essential. Your design must be smooth and self-understood. Users are sometimes frustrated if there are too many options. Don’t place restrictions on characters while entering passwords.
• Excellent onboarding process – Onboarding is the steps users need to complete when they first use your app. If the onboarding process is too complicated, the users might just shift to another app. To keep your users, have a simple onboarding with positive feedbacks. This would let the users complete their onboarding process successfully.
• Incentives and referrals – You can offer great incentives to those installing your app. This helps in increasing your customer base. You can also provide links to the most beneficial referrals which can stimulate business growth.
• Let your testing done- Never launch an app without first testing it. You may just lose your users if the app has errors. You can release your beta version to an app testing community before launching it. An erroneous app would not only waste your time, resources and money but also have an adverse effect on your reputation. You might just even lose your loyal customers.

Merits of having a great UI/UX

Both UI and UX should work in tandem to provide an excellent experience. People prefer using an app as compared to a website because it is just there, in front of them, on their smartphone or tablet. Revenues also increase as the users increase. A beautifully designed mobile app also decreases the churn rate.

Conclusion

A well-designed website or mobile application can work wonders for your business. A great design speaks volumes about your business and acts as a great marketing aid. So, it is worthwhile to give designing its due importance while implementing your online solutions.