In business, creating products and services that customers will adore is only half the battle. Building bridges between your company and your clients is a task that requires due diligence and careful planning. Nowadays, fierce market competition requires focusing on the way of providing services as well as on the quality of these services themselves. Force users to feel a regular inconvenience when trying to use your application, and in no time, they will go over to your competitor. Unfortunately, the issue is more common than you may think, and according to statistics, in 88% of cases, customers won’t return to your website or app if they face a bad UX (User Experience).
These numbers may seem pretty terrifying, especially for small startups since, in this case, each new client is worth its weight in gold. You can spend months creating eye-catching designs for your app for attracting new potential customers. But the truth is, all your efforts can turn into dust in a couple of clicks if they don’t feel comfortable using it. Luckily, UX specialists keep their fingers on the pulse of life and are well aware of the most common mistakes inherent in the average app. If you follow a set of simple practices, in most cases, you can save your app from eternal oblivion and ensure your business prosperity.
How Not to Let Your Efforts Go to Waste and Make Users Love You
Now, let’s consider some mistakes which avoidance will help you to make a good impression of your business. In some cases, you may think that we’re talking about pretty apparent mistakes, but if you analyze your own experience using websites and apps, you will be surprised how often you can encounter them in real life.
Trying to Look Better, Not Work Better
One of the most common mistakes that usually causes massive user disappointment is the intention to strike everybody with creativity at the expense of functionality. Inability to find the balance between how your app looks and the range of performed functions can play a cruel joke on you. Of course, new users can quickly get attracted by the fancy look of your app, but it’s important not to mistake the short-term inflow of new potential customers with success.
When we talk about web apps, most people don’t need a shiny toy that will become a delight to the eyes for a short time. Instead, they’ll prefer a reliable tool that can solve their day-to-day issues for years to come. Therefore, if you want to win customer recognition, it’s vital not to underestimate the design stage, start with a simple app, understand how users will interact with it, and move forward iteratively.
Making Your App Too Difficult to Navigate
If you build your app or a website without a proper approach to UX, you risk making a mistake that will cause massive frustration among your clients. Sometimes this mistake can be caused by your intention to provide as much as possible information and functional elements per unit of screen area. In some cases, you don’t pay due attention to how you distribute content elements in the app.
Such flaws can lead to a situation where a user can’t find specific information regarding the details of provided services. For example, say someone wants to order the services of a cleaning agency. In such a case, the impossibility of choosing a specific day and time for the visit of the cleaning specialist caused by UX design mistakes may lead to unwanted consequences. For example, clients may decide that in order to clarify this data, they will need to wait for a phone call instead of choosing the desired date in a couple of clicks. As a result, they’ll decide to choose someone who appreciates their time better.
Deprive Users of Effective Searching Features
Whether you deliver tasty pies or help clients get rid of the need to clean their homes themselves, it’s essential to give them a chance to find the exact piece of information they need here and now. The need to wade through service lists manually may feel exhausting for some people. Typing “blueberry”, “children’s winter boots”, or “clogged pipes” in the search field resulting in a neat list of what your company has to offer is a much more convenient option. That’s why you have to ensure that your app’s UX meets this requirement. Filtering can be an excellent addition to the simple searching feature, but adding too many filtering parameters can be a mistake. Design your searching functionality in such a way that it provides an opportunity to find the required service quickly, but do not overload users with redundant functionality.
Read Also Delivering Perfection to People You Know Nothing about. Eight UX Design Principles
Disregarding the Needs of Your Average Client
Before launching your app, it’s essential to understand the preferences of your target audience. UX design must become a reflection of who your average user is, what issues he has, and why he comes to you to solve them. It can be a mistake to look at what your competitors are doing and try to copy their app functionality and make some light adjustments. Instead, focus on potential clients and try to understand their needs and perceptions. For example, if your app helps you to sell peripherals for gaming, make sure that the UX invests in the users’ journey. You can personify the experience and provide them with an efficient mechanism of searching for devices compatible with their favourite gaming consoles and ease the pain of choosing what to buy by enabling easy-to-use comparison tools.
Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew
This one is a common mistake from the UX perspective and our regular life point of view. In pursuit of reasonable goals, we often try to work on every good idea that comes into our heads, and this mistake often leads to poor productivity and unmet aims. One of the cornerstones of good design is simplicity. When you plan how your app will look, you may decide to impress the user’s imagination with all the outstanding services that your company provides. We must tell you that this is a dangerous path. User interfaces overloaded with UI elements may cause confusion and uncertainty. No potential client has an advanced degree in ordering goods and services online, so it would be a mistake to think that they themselves will figure out the intricacies of the app interface.
Read Also What are Best UX Practices for the eCommerce Industry and Why They are so Important
Ignoring Mobile App Users
It goes without saying that the majority of users rely on mobile devices nowadays, so it’ll be a mistake to underestimate the impact that hordes of smartphone users can make. Good UX implies that your customers can use both desktop and mobile applications with equal convenience. Avoiding the design mistake that we mentioned earlier can become a considerable helper in providing excellent UX for mobile devices. If one of your main intentions is to keep everything simple, you’ll face minimal effort in adapting your app to smartphones and tablets.
Choosing Partners Blindly
Last but not least, choose wisely with whom you’re cooperating. When you’re looking for a company that provides UI/UX designing services, it’s pretty natural if you want to save some money. Following this intention, you can make the mistake of trusting in a company offering the lowest prices on the market. But saving on the design, you risk creating an app that repels users due to its poor usability. Such a blow to your brand could be worth significant losses in the long run. A small study of a portfolio of potential UX design service providers can be a good starting point. Check if the company has any experience in developing apps providing similar functionality as yours and spend some time researching feedback from their customers. UX design is an ongoing process requiring updates and polishing. Therefore, don’t make the mistake of trusting the first developer you see.
Conclusions
When we hear the word “design”, we usually think of something visual, such as bright colours, eye-catching animations, good-looking fonts, and this is often a mistake. UX designers focus primarily on how users feel when they use an app ongoing, rather than how they feel when looking at it on their smartphone screen. The appearance of your app plays a significant role in the formation of first impressions. What makes customers loyal and forces them to use your app over and over again is good UX design.
If you want to avoid common mistakes and cooperate with a team of experienced designers, feel free to contact us.