A mobile’s app user experience isn’t all about its functionality; it’s also about the design. Intuitive and visually appealing design can enhance attract new users and retain them.

In this guide, we will understand the fundamental elements of a good app design, and how to design an app that’s engaging.

Understanding the Basics of Mobile App Design

Mobile app design is much different than web design. Some major differences include in the way users navigate mobile apps, screen sizes, and user goals. Therefore, mobile apps also have different design principles.
Before you learn how to design an app, here’s a quick glance at the fundamentals of mobile app design.

Why good app design is important

Good mobile app design isn’t just about the elements and usability. It is also about user adoption, intuitiveness, user engagement and retention. With a great design, you can retain users and reduce the churn rate.

The difference between UI and UX design

Mobile app design consistents of both user interface and user experience design. Although they aren’t same, they’re equally important to achieve a functional app design.

UX (user experience) design focuses on the user’s overall experience and interaction with your app elements. It is responsible for creating an intuitive, easy-to-use app design.
UI (user interface) design centers on the visual interface of an app. It’s more focused on creating visually appealing, on-brand app screens.

UX aims at the app’s functionality, navigation, and user flows. On the other hand, UI thinks about the visual layer, branding, and cohesiveness of the app’s interface.

To create an app that’s intuitive and visually appealing, you need to balance both the UI and UX elements. The two design elements work together.

Designing for various platforms

Mobile apps have varying standards depending on the platform you’re designing for. Here are the guidelines for two primary mobile app platforms:

Mobile iOS: App developers follow Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), focusing on clean design and minimalist user interface.
Mobile Android: All android apps must follow Google’s Material Design, prioritizing top tabs, hamburger menus, and floating buttons.

Whichever platform you’re designing for, ensure that your app is responsive and runs smoothly for all screen sizes. Thus, it ensures that an iOS app can work on iPhones of various screen sizes.

Key elements of mobile app design

When you’re designing a mobile app, there are several key elements that build your app. These building blocks are especially crucial to create an app that engages users and feels native.

Screen structure and layouts: Mobile apps have screens and views. These views display all the UI elements such as headers, content blocks, and columns that show content. Design a good screen structure for easy navigation and visual hierarchy.
Navigation patterns: Intuitive navigation is crucial for usability and good user experience. In general, tab bars and stack navigation are the key elements that app designs use.
UI components: These visual elements create your app’s look and allow users to navigate your app. Elements like buttons, sliders, form fields, toggles, cards, icons, and lists are common in app screen design.
Touch gestures: Gestures such as tapping, swiping, dragging, and pinching allow users to initiate actions like search, payments, and changing app screens on mobile.
Text hierarchy: Typography and fonts play an important role in designing an app’s visual interface. Font size, weight, line spacing, and content grouping can help you create visual flow. Thus, the app feels intuitive and clean.
Color and contrast: Color can set the theme and provide intuitive functionality (such as, a red button for “cancel” and green for “proceed”) in an app. In addition, contrast makes your app accessible for those with assistive devices.
System responses and feedback: In-between states like loading states, transitions, error states, and validation messages are another important part of your app’s design. Do these well to keep every interaction clean for users.
Microinteractions: Subtle animations and effects, also known as ‘microinteractions’, keep users engaged and informed that their actions are being processed.

Best practices for mobile app design

There are some fundamentals for mobile app design that are essential to know before you start designing. These include:

Keep it simple: In mobile app design, less is more. Use essential elements only with enough white space, keeping the screens uncluttered.
Be consistent: Make sure that all the components, gestures, and styles are consistent and familiar across all app screens.
Design for gestures: Design your app with a thumb-first navigation in mind. Users should be able to perform gestures easily without having to put extra effort.

Optimize for performance: Keep your app design lightweight and responsive to minimize load times. Boost your app’s speed by removing unnecessary elements.

How to Design an Intuitive Mobile App Interface?

Designing a native mobile app that users actually use isn’t easy. It includes more than just UI elements. Here’s a 6-step guide on designing your user experience and building a real app with it.

1. Conduct user research and market analysis

When designing apps for end-users, the mobile app design starts with user and market research. It aims to understand your target audience and their pain points.

User and market research may seem simple, but it has many complex steps. It needs you to define:

Your target users: What demographics and pain points define your target users? Define their goals, pain points, and frustrations to create user personas.
Your app’s solution: Most probably, there are existing solutions to your users’ problems. You want to define how your app solves the problem: cheaper, easier, faster, better or something else.
Competitive analysis: Find out your competitor apps and use them. Outline their user flows, navigation patterns, screen designs, and visual hierarchy. Check user reviews on your competitor apps to find what they’re missing.
Patterns and gaps: As you do competitive analysis, find patterns in their user interfaces. Which elements do make sense to adhere to? If there are any user complaints, how will you address them?

2. Define your app structure

The next step is creating your app’s structure. Map out the features and screens your app will have. In addition, create user journeys, navigation maps, and workflows to define how users will use your app features.

To make it easier, you should split the process into two phases:

First, outline the key user tasks: Define the key features that a user expects from your app and the specific tasks they will perform. For instance, key user tasks for your app could include creating an account, planning their day, and delegating tasks to the team.
And then, plan core user journeys: Using the key user tasks, create a list of sequence of steps that a user will take to reach their goal from start to finish. Focus on logic and steps at this stage.

The key user tasks and user journeys will allow you to structure the app. In addition, map out app screens, actions, and navigation to complete user tasks. Make sure to leave out any unnecessary steps, reducing friction within the app.

3. Create the visual UI design

UI design aims at the visual elements and the branding of your app. It prioritizes visually appealing, on-brand pages and app screens.

When you’re designing your app’s interface, keep these aspects in mind:

Visual Identity: A brand visually stands out because of its unique brand colors, fonts, logos, and typography. Create a cohesive brand identity with the visual elements to make it recognizable and memorable.
UI Elements: Common, reusable elements such as buttons, icons, headers, and forms add to the visual depth of your app. Users learn to navigate your app with them. Hence, these UI elements should be consistent throughout the app.
Spacing and Alignment: White space allows users to easily scan and understand content in your app. Grid systems, alignment, and padding are the core of a modern app.
Platform-based Guidelines: Native mobile apps have certain platform-specific guides for UI design. There are Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for iOS apps and Google’s Material Design for Android apps.

These guidelines are meant to help you design apps for a smoother user experience. If you follow them, the app approval process for App Store or Google Play Store can get easier.

4. Build interactive prototypes

With interactive prototypes, you can view your app’s vision with function. Prototypes are great for user testing, feedback, and iteration.

Figma, Softr, and Sketch are popular tools for creating interactive prototypes. You can link different screens and add animations to make your design usable. After all, the goal is to create a functional prototype or MVP.

You can speed your production timeline with an all-in-one tool like Natively. Unlike the traditional ways, you don’t need to design and then add them together for an interactive prototype. It’s even better with Natively — you can build a functional app by prompting the AI agent.

Once your prototype is ready, you’ll need to test out the entire experience to see any lags. Here’s an easy way to do it:

Go through key user flow and note any steps that feel hard to get through.
Gather feedback from your team, early users, and stakeholders.
Ensure that every element is in its place and your app’s logic makes sense.

5. Get user feedback

Prototype testing and usability testing allow you to validate your idea, identify bugs and fix user flows early on. Getting user feedback on a functional app is crucial for accurate results. For instance, you can view your prototype as a native app via Expo Go.

While there are many several types of prototype testing, here’s how it works:

Define a clear, specific test. Make sure that your test’s details such as who, what, when, where, and how are specific. As compared to vague tests, narrow tests give you real, statistical data to improve your app.
Pick your testing users. It’s best to test your prototype with real users or your core target audience. Feedback from real users are much more valuable than from team members or stakeholders.
Choose a testing method and tools. Depending on the type of test you’re performing, you will need different tools and processes to conduct it. It’s easier once you’ve defined your test’s goal.
Look for patterns. Observe for patterns during user testing. Are they struggling to find a button to complete their task, or navigate through the app? They may not tell you exactly and so, you must observe to make your app more intuitive.
Evaluate and iterate. Analyze your test findings and prioritize feedback based on the number of users concerned with the issue. Refine your workflows and layout to make the user experience smoother and more intuitive.

6. Build the final version

With traditional development, you’d need to give the design to the mobile app development team. This means you’ll have to:

Package Figma files
Solidify design specs and image assets
Write interaction notes for workflows
Annotate designs with feedback details
Include mobile-specific design considerations

However, the process could take months to build a real app. Most startups would like to move faster than that and if possible — stay on a budget.

If you built your MVP with Natively, you don’t need to hand off any of the design. In fact, you can start iterating from where you left off. As soon as your app is finished, you can deploy it with an Apple Developer app. And there it is — ready for launch.

Design and scale your app with Natively

Traditional app development can be a very long process. From ideation to building an MVP to the final app, it could takes months for a startup to launch their app.

Natively’s AI agent streamlines the development process, getting months of work done within minutes. You can add databases, AI features, and make iterations — all without writing a single line of code. This allows you to build and launch a functional app within weeks.

Design and build your mobile app from scratch with one tool, Natively.