Introduction:
‘UX Design’ is a technical term for software designers or mobile UI/UX designers, particularly in the web and mobile application development niche. Here UX means user experiences. Logically, user experience with software maybe good or bad, but good is always expected.The formula for Right UX Design
If you want to say how much UX is good, you need to define its levels of goodness or ‘Delights’ in other words. At designer perspectives, UX design resides on the top of other underneath layers.
For instance, at the foundation of the UX pyramid, features and functionality (Functional) of the app resides. Once you add adequate and essential only features and functions, the app’s security, stability, and consistency (Reliability) come to the next level.
Top of the reliability layer, usability (How the app is usable) layer resides with its own set of parameters. Once you satisfy all requirements of three layers, you can go for user experience design or design for pleasure and make your app pleasurable or delightful for its targeted users or group of users.
Yes, I said it a group of users because apart from front-end users, admins or back-ends users are also a part of your targeted users. You cannot ignore them at any cost. Otherwise, your client/s would say you are not client-centric at all!
Levels of Pleasure (UX)
UX design is a category of emotional design, which elicits apt emotions to create a positive experience for the users. We, humans, form emotional connections with objects/design at three different levels, such as:1 – Visceral:
It is about initial impacts or first feeling elicit in the user’s mind when the user encounters a product in the first place. It deals with aesthetic or look-n-feel and engagement of senses. Commonly it terms as Gut Feeling, so it is instantaneous or Surface Emotional Design.2 – Behavioral:
It is related to complete/total experience of a product/design, including usability, performance, and ease of use in software design perspectives. It comes with deep backgrounds, so Inner Emotional Design.3 – Reflective
It concerns the values of a product in human life and describes the impacts of the development when a user has it.Emotional UX Design Tips
The following design elements and approaches enhance the surface UX delight to take the first step towards design success.
#1- UI or User Interface Design:
Users encounter with user interface first and start their app journey. Technically, each module and every screen has a User Graphics Interface (UGI) in mobile applications. It implies how UI design contributes to UX design to give an excellent first impression and delight when designing UX design best practices and standards prevailing in the software industry.#2- Microcopy or Miscellaneous Content:
We focused on the significant textual content and content layouts to improve UX experiences of the app screens/UIs. However, we hardly think of micro-copy or various texts placed in or for various UI components, including buttons, forms, in the footer, or different non-significant pages like Error pages/404, Help page, Thank You page, and so on. Micro-copy on these pages is attached to micro-interactions and leaves more significant impacts on readers/users. Hence, microcopies are directly or indirectly attached to users’ emotions and capable of delivering pleasure if attended positively by a professional content writer.#3- Animation Design:
Animation, be it small/micro or significant always captivating and add a surprise or other similar emotions to the user experiences. Fun animations have a non-significant part in the professional design until it has a contextual meaning. Functional animations help users to grasp the central idea of design and understand the principles. The significant spirits use as an educational tool or onboarding tool to guide users through the screens. Micro animations in design elements like buttons or icons help users understand those roles without any additional textual explanations.#4- Affordance Design:
When an object or design element has guidance characteristics, it cognitively refers to the affordance design concept. Affordance transitions are beneficial in off-canvas navigation and other designing in mobile apps. Apart from texts, micro-animation and icons are used as guiding elements.#5- Sound Design:
Many alerts, transitions, and animations come with cloying sounds to users’ ears and delight while interacting with such UI elements. Beeps, twinkling bells, drums, and much more giving momentum pleasure.#6- t:
Texts have their beauty when used with appropriate fonts, size, color, style, and background. Mobile devices have somewhat different nuances of typography, and app UX designers should learn it. Typographic practices, standards, and compatibility are changing mobile OS platform-to-platform. Therefore, UX designers have to learn heading styles, paragraph styles, microcopy styles, and much more in due course.Mindset & Processes of Next Level UX
A good UX designer should have a particular mindset and process to deliver excellence. The following are key drivers of the desired mindset.Opt for Responsive Design
Both the major mobile OS platforms are suffering from fragmentation issues on hardware as well as OS fronts. Native platforms are excellent in providing the best mobile app UX, so opt for responsive design approaches to mitigate the fragmentation issues. If you think of the cross-platform app, some excellent frameworks are available in the market, enabling app developers to use a variety of programming technologies to develop cross-platform apps. Other than traditional web app development technologies (HTML. CSS & JS) for the sake of native-like user experiences.Adopt Agile Methods for Iteration
MVP concept is viable in-app industry, but iterative development methods borrowed from Agile Methodologies are gaining ground in-app UX design processes. With the availability of in-app analytics, we can easily catch bugs, crashes, and other sensitive UX-related anomalies in the app even during the post-development stages of the app lifecycle. It provides you an opportunity to release updates or upgrades of your app versions in the marketplaces quickly.Be User-Centric
UX is for the end-users of products or design, so take appropriate measures to mitigate mild to severe UX issues right from the development stages. In due course, frequent UX tests are mandatory, and UX developers have begun the test right from the beginning. UX guerilla tests should accompany some major tests to make testing cost-effective as well as efficient.Be Consistent
You must ensure consistent user experiences across the entire product lifecycle. Therefore, care should be taken from planning, wireframe, prototype, actual design, programming, testing, deployment, and marketing stages of the app development process. Instead of focusing on wow factors, you should provide a consistent UX across the screens. Minimalism is the best approach in UX design, but complexities should deal with appropriate measures wherever it is essential for big-scale app development.Conclusion:
UX can take the mobile app design next level and give ideas, concepts, and tips that are extremely valuable for app developers, app entrepreneurs, and clients looking for business apps. However, each app development project is unique in the requirements and expectation of its target audience. Therefore, custom UX design and UX development approaches are mandatory to get success in the niche market. It is only possible with an impeccable team of dedicated UX designers and collaboration with mobile app development agency. Moreover, you will have an opportunity to obtain free app design consulting services before jumping on the app development process.About Post Author
