12 Best Practices for Mobile App Design in 2024

It has been almost nine years since business websites took a backseat to well-designed, easy-to-use, and personalized mobile apps. Since then hundreds of millions of businesses have created apps to gain ongoing access to their target audiences. And why wouldn’t they? In 2022, users spent 4+ trillion hours using apps. These figures from Data.ai further illuminate the unstoppable growth of mobile app usage that is bound to happen in 2023:

These figures are only going to increase in 2023 and beyond. In other words, more competition for your app/s. That means, if you are designing an app in 2023, you have no room for error. You have no room to overlook the mobile UX design best practices that the top brands and creators are already applying.

Of all these “mobile UI best practices,” 12 are considered essential. They are tried and tested practices that are actively discussed and applied by the best UI and UX designers across the world. In this article, we will explore these all-essential 12 mobile UX design best practices that can help up-and-coming UI and UX designers create world-class apps.

Mobile App Design Best Practices 2024

1. Defining the App’s Concept

Define the app design idea you are working on right at the start of the project. For example, let us say you are building a TV show tracking app that allows users to compile lists of shows they want to watch. By this short description alone, we can break down the app’s concept into a few core features:

• he app should display lists of TV shows
• The app should present details about TV shows, like duration, genre, ratings, synopsisetc.
• The app should allow users to bookmark their favorite TV shows.

As a UI/UX designer, breaking the broad app idea down into smaller segments and features right at the start will help you in many ways. It will allow you to focus on the design of each section. Create multiple iterations for each feature/section one by one. Here are some key mobile UX design best practices you will have to apply at this initial stage of the design process:

• Focus on reducing the effort users have to apply to access the core features of the app.
• Do not overwhelm users with too much information; minimize the number of actions users need to take to reach their destination.
• Use design elements that appear tactile and invite engagement.

2. Wireframing

Wireframing is essential in UI design. It allows app designers to give structure to their ideas in the early stages of the design process before they materialize them. Wireframing can:

• Expose the rough edges in your design ideas and plans so that you can reiterate them without time-consuming revisions.
• Help you receive feedback on the initial look/feel of the app from stakeholders and potential users.
• Wireframing is particularly important for designers working in remote, cross-functional teams because it allows all team members to get heavily involved in the ideation phase.

Many passionate UI/UX designers dive directly into generating high-fidelity mockups of their apps at this stage. While such actions seem tempting, they are not necessary. Working in low-fidelity will save you time and effort. Iterating the design is also easier when you keep customizations and styling to a bare minimum.

The wireframe in this example is generic enough to give designers room for rapid iteration as they define the foundations of the app’s UI and UX. The focus is more on function and less on the finer details like establishing a typographic scale or a color palette.

3. Set Design Goals

Now that the basic design idea of the app has been defined and you have developed a basic wireframe, it is time to set concrete design goals. Here are some ways designers optimize this practice:

Performing Competitor Research

What other app designs do you drive inspiration from? List down the qualities you would like your app’s UI and UX design to have.

Platform Research

Are you designing for iOS, Android, or both? Assess similar apps on the platform of your choice for guidance and inspiration.

Set Design Success Metrics

Set KPIs that are actionable, measurable, and relevant to your goals right at the start of the project. Some of the more important KPIs for UI/UX designers to prioritize right from the start of the design process include Task Success Rate, Time-on-Task, User Error Rate, Conversion Rate, and Session Duration. By starting your design project with these KPIs in mind, you will be able to gauge its success in the future more efficiently.

Another thing designers need to clarify at this stage is that an app design project is never “finished.” UI/UX designers must always assess how user needs/demands change over time and make appropriate iterations on a consistent basis.

4. Create a Notification Strategy

Notifications are inherently anti-user-experience. They are distractions that can ruin the UX of the app in a moment. Unfortunately, notifications are essential components of modern-day apps. So, designers must prioritize making their notification designs purposeful and useful right from the start. So, what makes a well-designed, “pro-UX” notification? Here are some pointers:

• The notifications should be designed in ways that they appear non-interfering.
• Notifications should be small in size.
• Designers must create different types of notification designs for different contexts. For example, a location-based push notification about sales/offers should look and feel different from a payment-related notification.
• For passive notifications like in-app promotions choose a lighter design. For active notifications that need to initiate instant action from users, choose a stronger design, say bold red-colored icons that suggest immediate action is required.

Notifications can be double-edged swords for UI/UX designers. Paying special attention to them at the initial stages of the design process is very important.

5. Use Gesture UI

“Gesture UI” is the practice of designing gesture-based interfaces. Users can operate gesture-based interfaces with gestures like scrolling, tilts, shakes, pinching, and tapping. For app designers, these finger swipes on touchscreens are the most commonly used application of gesture UI. Here are some basic guidelines on how to incorporate gestures into an app interface:

• Use clear, consistent, intuitive, and commonly known gestures that are easy to use and learn.
• Use gesture-based navigation frugally. An overload of gestures can overwhelm users.
• Test your gestures with users; make sure they function as intended.

6. Design Consistency

The term “consistency” in mobile apps and UI/UX design is concerned with uniformity.

• Are all the elements in your app UI uniform?
• Do they behave, look, and feel the same way?
• Do they affirm the average smartphone user’s assumptions about how UIs function?
• Is your app UI consistent with the globally prevalent UI guidelines?

Addressing the last question is the most important. Your app UI has to be consistent with all the prevalent UI guidelines that the world is familiar with.

• If you are designing an iOS app, your design should adhere to the iOS Human Interface Guidelines.
• If it is an Android app, your design should adhere to Google Material Design guidelines.

Your app design should also feel familiar with popular patterns, designs, and rules used in apps that are similar to your app. For example, think about how shopping cart pages are designed on eCommerce apps. On most eCommerce apps, the “Add to Cart” button is always big in size and placed right at the bottom of the screen, right?

Lastly, you must also take your own design style into account. The layout, placement of design elements, styling, type choices, and other design features should remain consistent throughout all app pages and sections.

7. Using Negative Space

Negative space, also known as white space, is the “breathing space” users need to feel a sense of balance, harmony, and order as they scan through an app. It also establishes visual hierarchy and makes interfaces easier to follow. Plus, effective use of negative space in UI design can place visual emphasis on important CTA buttons that encourage users to take specific steps.

In the example above, you can see the effective use of negative space makes the core elements of the interface stand out.

8. Maintain a Healthy Signal-to-Noise Ratio on your UI

In app design, “signal-to-noise ratio” is a concept that describes the relationship between the amount of relevant and irrelevant information in an app interface. Here is a simple breakdown of this concept:

• When designing for mobile, every design element counts. Every element on the screen is competing for the users’ precious time and attention.
• All the design elements you use can be classified as signal or noise.
• Signal is the relevant info users should interact with within an interface. This can be text content, visual elements, or any design element that users need to complete in-app tasks/actions.
• Noise is irrelevant info that does not contribute to or interfere with user goals. For example, unnecessary animations, pop-up ads, long-format text content, etc.

If you want your app design to be efficient in communicating important information, aim for a high signal-to-noise ratio. Here are some simple ways of reducing noise in your UI:

• Use simple shapes
• Use typography rationally
• Use a limited color palette
• Use a clean background with simple icons

9. Optimize User Flow

User flow is the path your user takes when using your app. Optimizing user flow is the practice of designing this journey to be smooth, seamless, and intuitive. Here are some basic ways you can optimize your app design for effective user flow:

• Ensure that users get to complete important actions with minimum effort.
• Insert visual cues on all app pages to guide users.
• Be consistent. Use the same visual cues throughout the app.
• Maintain design consistency on all app pages; the app should have no more than 5–10 distinctly designed pages.
• Provide clear feedback whenever users take correct or incorrect actions.
• Collect feedback from real users and refine the user flow accordingly.

10. One Hand-Centered Design

95% of the smartphones in the market today have displays that are bigger than 5 inches. With bigger screen real estate comes new challenges for app designers. On top of that, the average smartphone user checks their phone over 50 times a day. Most of these 50 interactions last less than 2 minutes. Here is an example of such short-burst, irregular usage of mobile apps:

As you can see, many of your users will probably be using your app in scenarios where they are preoccupied. To ensure your design is optimized for such user patterns, you must lean into one hand-centered design. What does this mean? A lot of things. For one, people who use apps with one hand cannot reach all areas of the touchscreen with their thumbs. So, it is essential to:

• Use large, easy-to-press buttons.
• Place important design elements in the center sections and the lower half of the screen.
• Add buttons that allow users to scroll through content-heavy pages quickly.
• Use gesture UI.

11. Content-First Design

A well-designed app with poor content is guaranteed to fail. Hence, giving users easy access to the content they are looking for will always be an all-essential practice in mobile app design. Your content-first design journey should start at the wireframing stage. Make sure that your app content is easy to find, scan, uncluttered, and presented in clear navigation structures right from the start.

12. Prioritize Onboarding

The first few seconds a user spends on your app after downloading it are essential. You might lose their interest if the onboarding process is not designed to make the most of every second. To avoid that, optimize your app’s onboarding flow. It is similar to optimizing your app for maximum user flow. Some basic guidelines include:

• Request only mandatory user info on the sign-up page
• Create a compact, all-in-one onboarding screen. Do not make users go through long, multi-page onboarding processes.
• Provide app content preview; for example, on your eCommerce app, allow users to check out the products and all product-related content on the app without asking them to sign-up.
• Use visual hints for guidance.

Summing Up the 12 Mobile App Design Best Practices of 2024

In this ever-expanding ocean of demand for high-quality apps, the ones that sail the strongest are the ones that are user-friendly and engaging. The designers behind those rare, successful apps tend to incorporate all 12 of the mobile app design best practices mentioned in this article. So, if you are designing your own app in 2023, use this guide to upgrade your design standards!

Originally Published at https://www.design-studio.io/