“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”
- Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things.
1. Research
First, understand the user needs and business goals. Find the target audience with user profiles, personas creation and conduct user surveys to create good & right content. Here, don’t put assumptions and must be aware of you’re not your user. Don’t under-estimate your users’ needs and thoughts. Your users only creating more impact on the project. So after research, thank them for participating in surveys and interviews.
Here, more research methods following while creating the application design. But I recommend you the content following image,
You don’t want to follow the above all methods. Just try depending on the budgets and time frames.
- Competitive analysis: it will give you, which features can add & what users don’t like. For this, you can use these tools Quick Search, Google AdWords, etc.
Here I found a few free third-party research sites. like, NGO’s and trade group original research documents available in these sites. 1. Pew, 2. International Monetary Fund, 3. Stats.org, 4. Yougov.com, etc.
2. Minimalism & Features
We gathered more data based on research like content inventory, actions taken, big problems, emotions, and goals. But the final data should be a highly focused and limited set of features. Card sorting techniques and cheat boards will helpful for minimize to the information architecture. It will reduce the confusion for the first user and avoid the overloaded information. The art of the define is validating, discards the assumptions. A gathering of the data and insights back to your team.
Mobile devices have limited workspace. So, you can define the content very neatly with the shortcuts.
- Navigation: Here, the more important thing is navigating the user for each screen. So we can use user flows, storytelling and Information architecture. For this, we will try to find a good way to find lacking navigation from paper prototype or low fidelity.
- Tools: Gliffy, Mind Node, Konigi, UX Pond, Viget Advance, UX Array, etc.
Here, I listed future technologies of mobile application trends for 2020.
3. Design
Yes, Visual Design is a great key skill of User Experience and it will make a good impact on the application. The application design conveys the empathies to the user. The best practices are wireframing, low fidelity to high fidelity which gives more navigation and details. Content visualization and the icons will communicate to the user via design. Avoid more lines, buttons, too many texts and use minimal shadow effects. So that you must follow design patterns.
- Consistency in the visual designs. In mobile application design, Text size levels 11 points and should follow 4.5:1 for body text (minimum contrast ratio), and image texts. The Colour theme is a more playable option in mobile designing things. I follow primary & secondary colors and finally, Visual Elements keep at least 7–10mm ample touch targets control measurements. Here, more Whitespace will attract the eye towards them. Finally, Alignment helps the sense of unity by providing structure in a subtle, yet powerful way. Don’t try to more clever and typography, it will create more usability problems.
- For designing, paid & free tools are available in the market. Personally, I recommend Adobe Creative Cloud. because all in one concept will reduce the designer’s productivity time.
Good design principles. like,
4. Interaction
Here, Interaction between User vs Computer or device. Each interaction should be solving the problem, feedback to the User, not only animation and Meaningless transitions. We must responsible for each human-computer interaction. Good interaction design is simply will follow the newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yes, the user will give input to the mobile or device and the device will respond to the user’s actions. Then only interaction design will give a good user experience.
Here, we need to consider the user multi-holds options. Like, 1. One thumb finger usage, 2. Holding mobile in one hand and Interact with the forefinger of the other hand usage, 3. chatting people usually using both thumbs fingers. Responsible screens want to convey the interaction clearly. Test your prototype with real-time users.
So, you should avoid slow content loading screens, via the use of temporary containers and a blank screen should be used as informative related infographics or creative GIF pictures which will give the user a good impression. Finally, micro-interactions will give more feedbacks and reduce unwanted confusions & frustration to the User.
- Actions: Reducing the number of clicks, while the user is doing the task which will help the user’s time consumption. And it is the primary goal of the designers. So that we can give more shortcuts. One screen to another screen link will reduce the time and loading speed.
- Tools: Adobe XD, InVision, Balsamiq Mockups, Origami Studio, Sketch, Axure.
The interaction will help,
5. Implementation
Why we need to test our application, the motive is reducing our developer's pain-points, Like the number of changes, alignment issues and finally, stakeholder feedback. Prototype testing is cost-effective and with the short duration deliverables. In early-stage it is good enough for your teammates to test your application.
After the feedbacks from the teammates test the real-time user and again it will improve your design. When you ready for the testing, user reactions, expectations will help to the application and this is a good approach. Here, users are separated by usage and keep on open-minded for the usability test your solutions.
- Comparative and Explorative are two ways for user to tests the designers. For testing, the right people will decide the objects and interactions with a good environment.
- Types of testing: Remote, Unmoderated, Task-based, Behavioural, Interactive, Do-it-yourself.
Here, I suggested more tools for testing your prototype. Like, UsabilityHub, Userbrain, UserZoom, Hotjar, UX Booth.
Testing helps,
“Good Design is a Language”
- Karthick Balakrishnan, Lead UX Designer.
