SpyreStudios

Web Design and Development Magazine

  • Design
  • Showcase
  • Inspirational
  • Tutorials
  • CSS
  • Resources
  • Tools
  • UX
  • More
    • Mobile
    • Usability
    • HTML5
    • Business
    • Freebies
    • Giveaway
    • About SpyreStudios
    • Advertise On SpyreStudios
    • Get In Touch With Us

Mobile UI Tips You Can’t Afford to Skip as an App Developer

October 29, 2015 by Spyre Studios

mobile ui tips featured

Editor’s note: This post was written by Alex Ivanovs, an online entrepreneur who focuses on markets like web development, web design and small business. His portfolio consists of several high profile online magazines that are now used as daily resources amongst the developer community, one such magazine is CodeCondo — a fast-growing learning resource for developers and designers.

Mobility is a collection of four forces – social, cloud, mobile, and analytics, which are transforming the way people and businesses operate today. The responsive design is a “default” expectation of an every user – whether a layman or an app geek. You cannot sell your “mobility” feature as a value added service. With rapid increase in the use of mobile devices and major involvement of mobile into our daily tasks like shopping, reading, studying, paying, playing, mobile user interface becomes an important aspect to look at while developing a mobile/non-mobile application.

Following are some quick tips on how to deal with mobile UI.

The UNIVERSAL Interactive design plans

Goal-driven design, usability, learnability, latency, affordable and signifiers – the five pillars of interactive designs. When we talk about UI, screen size doesn’t matter, whether the UI is for desktop or mobile device these rules remain the rule of thumb.

Know the Users!

The core UI element of any app is “CONTEXT”. Research about the personas and usage scenarios before you plan the application UI. Or in other words, plan out a usability testing session between two div or design iterations, learn inferences and re-plan the UI.

The size matters!

Here we are talking about the button sizes.

  • If your button width is less than 1 cm usually considered as user’s finger size then it will be hard and surely slower to touch, so you must follow the standard rules and must have an idea of the minimum button size to keep the application usable.
  • Then, there are beginners (does that remind you of your grandmom asking you to connect her to some close relative on an internet call?).  The varying button sizes are important elements.

mobile ui tips

Placing the elements

Some stats say that most of the touch screen devices are operated by thumb. It is considered as the primary finger to operate the devices and perform clicks. Given that, this becomes another important aspect to have the primary buttons at the bottom right instead of top left. Reaching the top left corner of the screen through the right hand thumb becomes comparatively tough. The designers need to ensure that application UI elements are located at the positions that do not become nasty to flow of the application.

Another aspect to this is “accounting for motion”. If the UI control requires motion – sliding, drag and drop, selection list etc. – one need to consider the natural limitation of fingers while moving an app in any direction.

Just the essentials!

This is where desktop application design principals differ from mobile app interface designs. Earlier, the application success used to be measured through “how many” features does the application offer, how many checkboxes are there so you can click and make an option active. This success definition is no truer in this era of mobile revolution.

The marginal or less useful features when added to a desktop application used to be application USP sometimes, however, it is completely the opposite with mobile apps. If you add less useful features on the very first interface itself you make the UI cluttered. So the best practice is to cut down the less useful features and make it more personalized.

The Un-Trendy won’t work!

The design needs to match with what is trending. Users are so much exposed to the mobile apps these days that it will take them a few seconds to realize if the application is using old/unfashionable UI elements. One should be aware of the audience expectation and accordingly to that they must design the app; if the application looks outdated, users will surely make note of that.

Free UI Elements For Web and Mobile Design

So the tip here is must explore at least 10 applications (popular ones) of similar domains which have been launched recently. Go through the reviews and make sure you are not doing something that has already been rejected by the audience.

Some limitations can’t be overcome

No matter how hard you try, there are some limitations that just cannot be overcome. Platform limitation is one of them. No matter how beautiful, contextual, and engaging the prototype is, it is of no use if the targeted platform or device does not support it. The developers and designers should first research the feasibility for targeted platform and device and then proceed for wire-frames.

OS developer forums and mobile app developer forums like stackoverflow.com can be some quick reference forums for you to learn from others’ experiences and not reinvent the wheel!

While these are some very generic tips and based on experiences from our daily activities, if followed, these can assure the high probability of user acceptance of the applications.

Are you also one of those creative brains who are into application designing and development (mobile/non-mobile)? Do you have anything to add to this quick tips list? Share with us if we have a good rationale to add to the list above or replace any of the points above.

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged With: app ui, ui, ui design

Recent Posts

  • What Factors Determine the Best Digital Marketing Agency?
  • 31 Fresh Design Elements for Spring and Easter
  • 10 Templates for Music Concert Flyers
  • How to Build a Web Scraper Using Node.js
  • Best PHP Books, Courses and Tutorials in 2022

Archives

  • June 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008

Categories

  • Accessibility
  • Android
  • Apps
  • Art
  • Article
  • Blogging
  • Books
  • Bootstrap
  • Business
  • CSS
  • Design
  • Development
  • Ecommerce
  • Fireworks
  • Flash
  • Freebies
  • Freelance
  • General
  • Giveaway
  • Graphic Design
  • HTML5
  • Icons
  • Illustrator
  • InDesign
  • Infographics
  • Inspirational
  • Interview
  • Jobs
  • jQuery
  • Learning
  • Logos
  • Matrix
  • Minimalism
  • Mobile
  • Motion Graphics
  • Music
  • News
  • Photoshop
  • PHP
  • Promoted
  • Rails
  • Resources
  • Showcase
  • Tools
  • Tutorial
  • Twitter
  • Typography
  • Uncategorized
  • Usability
  • UX
  • Wallpapers
  • Wireframing
  • WordPress
  • Work

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

SpyreStudios © 2022