Are you an aspiring designer who is trying to build a unique mobile app design that could ensure customer engagement and offers required marketing measures? Well then, the past will always haunt you and will take you to an edge.

The design mistakes that you have created in the past will make you perfect in the present. Few simple design errors might take you one step backward and you’ll end up gathering virtual dust.

Peers generally see UX as Interface and Visual design but don’t know that UX is deeply rooted in research and testing. Also, there is some misconception about UX and how it will fit the development process of the mobile application. Many People develop a mobile application to bring more business but what if your large sum of investment doesn’t give you proper ROI. For this, you need to be aware of a few common design mistakes to avoid before developing a mobile app.

Let’s dive in to analyze design errors that can destroy your mobile application.

1. Not Doing Requirement Research

Before you put pen to paper, there is some basic level research you can do to refine your product by adding the best design to it. Before you start working on a UI design, you should be aware of the following requirement:

• Why are you creating this mobile app?
• Will it help users to fulfill their expectations?
• Will your app design attract a large number of audience?
• Have you designed each product specifically to help the user understand well?

2. Poor Onboarding Impression

If your first impression looks poor to the user then they’ll get quickly disinterested in looking further. In this case, you need to add proper features which will be marked as an umbrella point for all of the mobile design best practices.

Do not add a lengthy onboarding process which will bore users, but without proper onboarding points, your app will confuse users at an intuitive stage. Keep in mind that when a user logins to your mobile app they don’t find any waypoints such as ‘How your app will work’, ‘what you’re providing them’ as this will irritate them. Besides, you can get on the beta testing process that allows designers to learn how to perceive the app from the beginning. Have a look at below example:

What seems obvious here is to offer the best onboarding process that best engages users and gives a delicate balancing act.

3. Not Completing Information Architecture

This is the phase that designers shouldn’t skip and be careful about. It’s thoughtful planning of an app’s UX architecture that should be carried out before jumping into design work. The designer should map the user flow and structure of an app before getting into the wireframing stage. This happens several times when designers become very excited to go into the detailing of the app and work on the design part.

Designers are failing to optimize the user flow, so you need to slow down. Firstly, stop worrying about going into finer details. Simply, sketch out the basic flow and how the process will take off from there. Keep the picture in mind and go on with the inner detailing of the design and think about how well you can evoke and reinforce the best design concept.

4. Not Doing a Competitor Review

It’s for all design teams out there in the market to recognize the competitive mobile app market. It helps to carry out whatever is possible for them to differentiate the offering from other thousands of apps available in outer space. Take the review about how what the mobile app is hoping to achieve, what design processes and practices they are following incorporates user feedback. The best way to do this is to go through UX competitor analysis with understanding rules to maintain a comparative mindset.

• Identify the need
• Identify the real competitors
• Compare through criteria and not preference
• Analyze and Summarize
• Present your UX competitor analysis
• Study common UX research pitfalls

You simply need to carry out focused UX competitor analysis that helps you get valuable insights and help in multiple ways. Besides keeping an eye over direct and indirect competitor you need to give an edge in your designs.

5. Not Wireframing and Iterating

This is the common mistake that most designers make while building a mobile app. Building an application without wireframing will destroy your mobile app as it’s an important task to carry out from the beginning. Let’s look at how it works.

What is Wireframing?

The designing process is an essential component for any designer. Wireframing allows the designer to think about the path that the user will follow. It will make it easy for users to get into your mobile app and get the right information they are looking for. In short, Wireframe is a skeletal mockup of an app that is typically used for designing the user interface, content, and functionality.

Put user’s need first.

Wireframing will allow designers to start from zero functionality and before the user wants a visual design. It will progressively improve the dispersion of information and data as well as UX. Using a dedicated wireframing tool will benefit designers of utilizing pre-made wireframe components. It will reduce the efforts of designing UI components from scratch and frees up to think about optimal user experience.

Why Is Wireframing Required?

It’s initial sketching or storyboard that gives designers a clear visualization of concept to plan the complexities of navigating structure. It’s a plan of structure, layout, and functional requirements of each screen in the user flow. We can say that it can act as a blueprint by providing clear direction to tackle more detailed aspects of the design. There are various wireframing tools available in the market and are divided into three main categories:

• Low-Fidelity: It is useful for quick visualization and establishes a mindset that ideas are both endless and disposable. Example: UI Stencils, InVision
• High-Fidelity: It is used for final versions of design where mocking of screen designs are done at an affordable cost. Example: InVision Studio, Sketch
• Dedicated: Build faster wireframe using this dedicated tool as it’s a combination of both Low and High fidelity wireframing.

6. Not Prototyping

Not Prototyping will take you in the wrong path as you’ll find complexities while on the way with publishing the unnoticed errors. Get to know, why prototyping is important.

Prototyping is something like shifting from User interface (UI) design to User Experience (UX). It is created by users to operate an application and perform actions. Moreover, it helps users to understand how functionalities in an application will work. In this phase of designing, the user will experience how the system will perform and how the user will click on the buttons, enter data and check operational flow.

It will allow users to test the application by knowing the loopholes in the design flow. Tools such as Mockplus and FluidUI are useful for UI/UX designers, software engineers, developers and more to visualize the idea behind building a mobile application. Hence all designers need to prototype their mobile apps.

7. Not Completing Features Listing

If you have checked wireframing and prototyping then this phase might seem familiar as it helps to make a distinction between necessary and excessive functionality. The best way you can carry out is to explain to the designer the exact features you’re looking into your application and how it will help with visuals.

Remember, not to add too many features as it will add up more cost and time for design and development. Take care of the budget as multiple functions would cost you more than a simple app. Also, it will make your app slow and congested with affecting the overall performance of your app. There are chances that the user might face issues such as complexity and slow loading UI. So, using fewer functionalities might save your additional cost. Make sure that your primary motto is to gain the trust of the users and later you can include new features along with future updates.

8. Not Deciding the Development Technology

However, this is one of the biggest mobile app design mistakes that some of them skip while developing a mobile app. For this designer and developer should identify the platform that the user wants to consider. Whether its iOS, Android or Windows one needs to look at its pros and cons along with knowing its factors that will suit your application the best.

Keep a note on features rather than adding overloading data as it will be more expensive. To reduce the unnecessary task and functionalities by uplifting the app drastically. Instead, add top-notch features that are very much useful to the users.

If you’re choosing Android or iOS, you need to remember what design you will sync with on which platform. Take full interface into consideration and think about the best icon and design that will suit your design needs with ease.

9. Not Trying Original UI and Navigation Options

Provide users with the proper and clear purpose to keep using your application. Give your user a business model plan to ensure you can monetize it. Besides all these, your designer should give proper UI navigation or else the user won’t be able to find its way around your application and will get lost. This poor navigation design will cause the user to drop off through the conversion funnel.

To get UI and UX-friendly navigation to begin with mapping from point A to point B. The design navigation menu will provide a way to the user by giving proper visualization and interaction with your designs in real-time from the start.

10. Force Fitting Design Guidelines for Android and iOS

Android and iOS are both different platforms and need different designs. This is the common mistake made by designers as they apply the same design for both platforms and app interface. Today, one can use a cross-platform strategy using advanced mobile app development tools where developers need to use a single codebase to develop an application.

If you have a limited budget then ensure that you avoid this type of mistake. You can test the market and decide whether to stay with a hybrid app or go for a native app.

11. Not Including Micro-Interactions

Micro interaction would convey system status, support error prevention and communicate the brand. We can say that micro-interaction is the secret to the great design as it helps in keeping more engagement with giving proper look to the design.

You need to take care of a few things while you’re visual designing elements.

• Keep the language simple
• Give human voice for each micro-interaction
• Create a visual harmony with other elements
• Don’t overthink about simple text message notification
• Take care about each interaction and detailing with care
• Make a note about adaptations and how subsequent micro-interaction will work out

Let’s take an example of how micro-interaction will work out.

Apple smartwatch is a device that gives you pretty much interaction as this device is designed for lots of notifications. Besides this, each app will have its features designed to give information on the screen.

12. Not Doing QA and Usability Analysis

Designers should work and analyze their app usage by taking some sort of feedback to know what and what not working in there. Dig deeper into the draft of the application with the help of impressive fresh eyes and doing beta testing. Before going public send out an ad to the beta tester and work within your audience. No doubt, beta testing may be time-consuming as it goes into all edit down features and finds out what’s missing in your application.

13. Not Setting Defaults

For interactive elements, one can consider default values which can be a big help for users. One needs to consider small-scale visual walkthroughs with making things easier for the users. Show users how to use the app, provide various options for users and who are uncertain by speedy up intact interaction. Defaults are good for feedback which helps in cutting down the number of errors and with a null option which will immediately know whether the user has made a decision or not.

Some Expert Advice

Keep on learning and improving the mobile app UI based on your user requirements. Wrapping this article by showcasing best UI design inspirational sites such as: Behance, Dribble, Awwwards, UI Movement, Flickr, Site inspire and pinterest that have demonstrated how satisfactory the design should be.

Experts suggests:

• Give your content room to breathe by adding proper designs, buttons, and areas for users to interact.
• Add Margins, patterns and suitable fonts to be more consistent on every single screen.
• Use UI elements where required with proper dimensions and scale.

Takeaway Thoughts

Now, it’s time to give your great idea in action. You can consider the above points as a checklist to help you get through all quality processes and overcome all mobile app design mistakes by ensuring your app is good in-terms of visually and usability. There might be a lot more crazy design mistakes that might be unnoticeable by us or users. All-in-all you need to identify those errors and avoid those common unseen mistakes by giving smartest solutions that you can praise for.