CX/UX Design Tips for your end-to-end mobile experience

Smartphone customers spend over 90% of their mobile data on native apps for a myriad of purposes from entertainment to transport, to banking and communication. With the growing number of apps, the options are endless and often it’s a customer’s experience that will determine the difference between a mediocre or top performing app. At each step of your customer’s mobile journey, these design tips will create a memorable experience and help increase conversions on your mobile interface.

At first glance

Like any first impression, looks play an important role. UX Designers should aim to leave a striking impression on your customer and ensure your customer has a positive and effortless first experience, similar to a first date, with these pointers:

● Less is more: On mobile, you only have a few seconds to grab a customer’s attention. Ensure your app’s splash screen loads quickly and avoid overwhelming users with an overload of information. One way of doing this is to use icons to remove unnecessary text.

● Flaunt your best: Prioritise the most essential features on your home screen. This helps a first-time customer find what they want instantly without complicated steps.

● Keep your navigation visible: Your app’s primary navigation menu should be visible, intuitive, and coherent across the app. Make sure the menu is consistently placed in the same location.

Hold their hand

So you’ve made it through the first date. Now it’s time to guide and educate your customer through to conversion. For most customers, an online conversion or transactions are heavily dependent on convenience. First-time customers and repeat customers should be able to convert with minimal effort. Here are some pointers:

● Make text entry easy: It’s taxing to type on a smartphone. Where possible, leverage mobile functionality such as the camera and location services to decrease the need for typing. Nick Babich, UX Planet Editor-in-Chief, also suggests text on mobile should be at least 11px to be readable without zooming.

● Consider the shopping cart: Focus on the shopping cart experience. Simple features that give customers the option to confirm prices, save items, add additional items, and edit their shopping basket gives control and confidence over their transactions.

● Include search options: An easy-to-use search function is helpful on mobile. Provide multiple ways to search such as keyword searches, image searches, and product scanning where relevant.

● Cater to multiple payment options: Enable efficient payment options such as card scanning and express payment processes like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and PayPal. This will reduce the effort to complete a payment. In case of ongoing subscription fees, include an option for automatic recurring payments.

● Reduce clutter and distractions: Avoid diverting a customer from completing a transaction with other pages. Make sure there is no clutter on checkout and confirmation screens.

Score a second date

According to Statistica, 20% of apps are abandoned after one use but with an investment in user-centered design, you can entice customers to return to your mobile site or app. Improve your customer loyalty and retention with:

● Memorable visual designs and content: Aesthetics aren’t everything so ensure your mobile design delights without sacrificing usability. Always include relevant and emotive content that adds value!

● Synchronise across devices: In an ideal world, a mobile design should be responsive and transition seamlessly across different devices.

● Allow customers to personalise their accounts: Give customers control over their data by granting access to your settings and transaction history. Spice things up by adding options for content. According to Altexsoft, “by offering an experience tailored to each customer’s lifestyle, you foster an emotional connection to an app that will result in increased retention rate.”

● Make use of widgets and notifications: Notifications should be personal, timely, and highly relevant to the customer. Widgets should have narrow functionality that can be digested as required.

● Add features that reward loyalty: Encourage frequent use through loyalty points and vouchers they can be easily received and redeemed. The UX Design must enable them to acquire and redeem these rewards without the need for printouts.

The mobile-first era is here to stay. As mobile sites and apps become an integral part of our everyday life, providing customers with an experience that helps them seamlessly complete a task is a must. Ensure your UX design is mobile-friendly to account for the unique requirements and specificity of an app. Applying UX Design principles to mobile will allow designers to optimise every facet of an app, ensuring maximum and return use from customers.

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