User Experience (UX)

In todays interconnected world, every possible interaction that people make with their surroundings fall under the ambit of user experience, based on which decisions are mounted upon. These compelling user interactions with their digital and non-digital surroundings have collectively termed the concept of User Experience. Taking stock of these interactions becomes really essential for UX designers, as it gives a perspective of the utility that a product or service would serve in alignment with their ideal user experience. In this regard, UI/UX design is the art of making concrete formulations based upon analyses, suggesting the degree of utility that a product will be to the user when offered. This blog entails the UX design practices incorporated by mobile applications leading to a delightful user experience.

5 Mobile UX Design Practices

Positioning of the UI Controls

It has been time and again purported through research articles that placing User Interface (UI) controls have a significant impact on the users behaviour. For instance, studies have articulated that the most important user controls are positioned either on the centre or bottom of the screen suggesting that proximity of controls with respect to usable screen area is a vital UX practice.

Detachment from long-scrolling

Nothing more can dissuade your user as much, from a delightful experience, than a long winding stroll across the page can. To put it simply, clubbing the entire mobile screen interface with multiple users prompts should be avoided, instead, simpler layouts should be preferred over the conventional mechanism of using the scroll feature. For instance, layout with an expanded card feature is something that comes in handy with a thumbnail that upon clicking cascades into further menu options.

Adopting Skeuomorphism principles

The term Skeuomorphism in itself suggests the 3-dimensional manifestation of any object featured on celluloid that mimics the same real-world entity bringing in more familiarity with the users. As human memory is highly tenacious to visual memories, therefore applying 3D models of the product can turn into an immersive experience for users.

Simpler Navigation Mechanism

Much like a sitemap offers a blueprint of any website in the eyes of its spectators, similarly straddling across the mobile applications should also be made a seamless experience. In order to ensure intuitive navigation for mobile applications, designers should deliberately tweak the access time taken, while toggling to different pages, to a bare minimum of 3 clicks. In other words, users should be able to switch through any page in less than 3 clicks.

Utilization of Skeleton Screens

Skeleton screens are just an ad-hoc substitute for an apps rendition onto a mobile screen. Broadly speaking, they are simply temporary content placeholders that aid in loading the page while the actual content gets uploaded, thus giving a false perception that the page gets loaded instantaneously. However, in reality, the content gets a buffer time to load under the skeleton screen, therefore, giving an impression of deceiving speed. Applying this UX design practice can surely add a fillip to the existing time-consuming user experience.

People visiting a mobile site or using a mobile app will have a better overall user experience if these established mobile UI/UX design standards are followed. Designers only have a few seconds to capture the attention of users before they quit an app or website in favour of one that is more user-friendly, intuitive, or streamlined.