Why Mobile App Design Matters
Creating an app is a rewarding process for many small and medium size business owners. The purpose of an app is to do more than simply communicate with your prospective clients – it is a way to encourage their direct engagement, and provides opportunities for creating brand loyalty, advertisement, and recognition in a passive and relatively inexpensive manner. A good app is a powerful tool, not only on its own, but as a means of increasing brand legitimacy and visibility. Many business owners become so entranced with the idea of their app that they miss out on one key feature: the app’s design. In this article, you will learn why design is a crucial part of app design and development, and how you can use it to your benefit.
Many digital marketing experts are familiar with concepts such as SEO marketing, but they fall short on knowledge of software development. If your digital marketing team isn’t directly involved in the creation of your app, they should be. Clients expect your app to function as an extension of your business. Although software development teams know to keep your app’s focus in the same ballpark as your company’s goals, they don’t necessarily have the knowledge necessary to maximize the marketing potential of an application without making it feel like a sales pitch instead of a fun and engaging product.
Design is the area that allows the full participation of your marketing staff. The impact of both your user interface and user experience is crucial to an app’s success. High level design action items allow room for the interpretation of color schemes, page architecture, and function. Low level design features like font style, color, and frame complexity allow for direct and informed input from your marketing staff. With input from both marketing and software development professionals, you can create a solid product that has the ability to gather the attention of your audience and command brand presence while cultivating user dependence. If you create an app that appeals to your target market, you can grow your customer base without the need to bombard them with outright advertisements.
An example of the interaction of design and mobile app software development is the size of finger taps for touch screen style smart phones. If the buttons in your window are too big, not much else can fit on the screen. Too small, and users will feel as though the app is poorly designed and difficult to use. Colors and textures of the buttons alter a user’s desire to actually engage with the app. For example, in one now slightly famous experiment on website use and design, users who were faced with a green button versus a red one were significantly less likely to click the button. The issue wasn’t the color itself, it was the contrast between the red and other colors on the screen. The green blended into the palette of blue and white. Working knowledge of the color wheel and how to use it is crucial to designing an app that makes users eager to participate.
Users strive to find applications that are easy to use, reliable, and quick loading. Visible attractiveness is also important. The key to a successful app is the combination of these aspects with visually appealing graphic design and a clear goal in mind for the app itself. Game designers have reported that an engaging and clear story line is key to the success of any game app, but the same is true of any app. You need a clear story – an end goal for your users. Without this, the focus is lost, as is the desire to use the app. Design helps to communicate the story and unify the feel of the app itself from screen to screen.
Creating an app is more than providing a service or engaging with your customers outside of the normal sphere of business. It is a complex form of communication that conveys what your business is about, and who you are. If your app is poorly designed, your business may suffer. Create an app with an excellent design and ease of use, and you may find your customer base growing quickly as a result.