If you think that your app’s design is enough to make people use it, then that is rarely the case. Users want to engage with an app because it allows them to easily complete a task. That’s why user experience is an essential part of an app’s success.

When it comes to app design, “user experience” is about how intuitively people can use the app. This is where the two parts of design get involved: user interface design (UI) and user experience design (UX).

Both the UI/UX designs are responsible for the final end-user experience. In this guide, you’ll learn to design a functional, visually pleasing, and intuitive app from scratch.

What is UI/UX Design?

UI stands for “User Interface” in design. As the name suggests, it involves creating an app interface that is functional, user-friendly, and visually appealing. It includes designing navigation menus, layout, hierarchy of design elements, and selecting color schemes.

UX stands for “User Experience” and thus, focuses on the app’s functionality. It ensures that a product is accessible and user-friendly. The process involves user research to map out the user journey. Thus, it leads to intuitive workflows and an organized app information architecture.

Although UI and UX have different processes, their ultimate goal is to design an end-user experience. The fundamental principles of UI/UX design apply to both progressive web apps (PWAs) and native apps. It makes them similar, if not the same.

How to Define Your App Idea?

You need UX design to validate your app idea. The process mainly involves research, collecting feedback, and testing prototypes extensively.

It’s also the first step of the design process that sets the tone for your app’s structure. The UX design consists of three aspects:

1. Identify user problems

You need to figure out the problem that your app solves and what sets it apart from your competitors. Conduct thorough market research to understand your ideal customer. This includes knowing who they are, what they do, and their preferences.

User interviews are mostly necessary in the early development stages. It can help you understand your audience’s current frustrations. Thus, giving you a ‘value gap’ to fill with your app.

Once you’re past the user research phase, turn to the app and get clarity on what it’s going to be about. You can answer the following questions:

What is the main goal of the app?
What problems does our app solve?
Who is this app for?
How can you set your app apart from the competitors?
What extra features will the app have?

Throughout the research, your focus should be on the users. In addition, be thorough with it as the data will direct many decisions you make while designing the app.

2. Create information architecture

Information architecture refers to the organization of an app’s content and functionality to make it user-friendly. The goal is to design the app in a way that users can understand where they are within the app and how to navigate through it.

It typically involves your app’s sitemap, labeling, and navigation. Here’s how you can create a functioning structure:

Design data hierarchy: Organize the data within your app in terms of hierarchy, ensuring that you go from the major to the minor categories.
Plan navigation paths: The goal should be to make navigation easy for the app users. Start with the primary navigation paths, such as menus or tabs, and then secondary paths such as links or breadcrumbs. Make sure that these paths align with the data hierarchy.
Design a sitemap: Create a sitemap that visually represents the structure of your app. It should include the primary screens in the main menu, and the secondary screens that these pages lead to.

As you design your information structure, ensure that it’s scalable. Use broad categories that can incorporate new categories as your business grows. This is the foundation of your intuitive app.

3. Design a wireframe

If you’re building your app using traditional development methods, the next step would be designing a wireframe. Here’s why: A wireframe visualizes the layout and functionality of an app’s screens to finalize the design before any coding begins.

However, if you use a no-code native app builder such as Natively, you can avoid this step entirely. Instead, you can make the changes you need in the iterative prompt. You’ll get an updated version within minutes.

How to Design an App: 6 Principles

Once you’ve completed the research, then comes the actual design called UI. Although there are many fundamentals for it, here are the six basics that you need to design an intuitive mobile app:

1. Consistency and simplicity matter

In mobile app designs, consistency creates an intuitive user interface. Consistent elements make every screen of the app feel familiar. It involves UI elements such as fonts, colors, and button styles.

Consistent design also extends to interactions, gestures, and feedback mechanisms. Here are a few tips to create a user-friendly app:

Ensure that every screen follows the same visual data formats.
Maintain consistency in interactive elements as well.
Use the same color scheme to indicate errors, success, or processing.

In addition, simplicity is the core of mobile design. The best app designs prioritize simple interfaces with minimal elements and functionalities. Hence, it creates an interface that doesn’t overwhelm the users.

2. Create content hierarchy

Content hierarchy is another important aspect of an intuitive app design. It ensures that the users get exactly what they expect throughout the app. Thus, making it seem ‘easy’ to use.

Limit the elements on a page to create an ‘organized’ effect. It also makes your app faster than usual. Then structure your content from top to bottom of the page in an order of most to least importance.

To ensure you create a minimal yet useful structure, you can answer the following questions:

What is the primary action you want users to take on this page?
What information do they need to complete this action?
In what order should this information be structured, from most to least important?

In addition, use headings to break the information visually. Content hierarchy is about keeping the page free of fluff and light.

3. Interactions are crucial

Imagine swiping a button and nothing changes. It leaves users clueless about whether the action was processed or not. That’s why how you design interactions is crucial.

Whether it’s a swipe or a tap, every interaction should lead to an immediate response. It could be a simple animation, a color change, or haptic feedback. These micro-interactions reassure the users about their actions on the app.

4. Make it readable

Apps mostly communicate with users through text. Thus, factors such as typography, font size, and contrast play a vital role. The textual content should stand out against the background, for instance.

Mobile screens create a unique challenge for design, given their size. That’s why you have to choose easily readable fonts. An app’s design might be visually pleasing, but if it isn’t readable, users won’t stay.

5. Follow the brand style

A brand style ensures consistency across the entire app interface. You can use a brand style guide that outlines the color palette, typography, and visuals.

Such consistent visuals improve the user experience. If you’re building your app on an AI mobile builder such as Natively, you can include your brand style guidelines in the prompt. You can also change any features you don’t like through iterative prompting.

6. Personalize the app

Personalization is the key to enhancing the user experience. Nowadays, users expect apps to consider their unique preferences, habits, and needs with every move.

Anything, such as small reminders, can make the entire experience special. To personalize your app, you can offer content recommendations, adaptive features, or simple reminders. Such a design boosts user engagement and satisfaction.

Conclusion

Designing a user-friendly app is all about research and testing. The user should be your focus at every step of the process. However, if you’re developing the app from scratch, it can be challenging to rewrite code for every decision change.

This is where no-code app builders can simplify the process for you. Natively can design apps for you from scratch, allowing you to make any changes in real time. In fact, you can make any changes in the code yourself. Design your app within 30 minutes — try Natively today.