Mobile applications have simplified online transactions. The interactive nature of such apps has made it easy for businesses to interact with clients and this has resulted in better business outcomes. But with competition growing in the app industry, businesses have to make sure that they up their design game lest they lose users to the competition. Mobile users are particularly interested in the usability of the apps they come across and in this article; we highlight the common mistakes that developers make that ruin the user experience.
1. Feature stuffing
Most developers think that more features will appeal to mobile users and generate more traffic for their application. This, however, could not be further from the truth since more features mean more hurdles for the user to navigate. New users will find it hard to use the app and most will choose to uninstall it rather than going through the training required to effectively use the app. To avoid all this confusion, mobile app developers are advised to avoid feature stuffing. Too many features will also make it difficult for the app to load since the features take up a lot of memory space. You will, therefore, lose users who are not patient enough to wait for your sluggish application to load all the unnecessary features that it contains. The best strategy is, therefore, to include only the primary features when designing the application and making updates at a later stage if your users demand more features.
2. The needless login page
Most app developers include a login page for their apps. Users are, therefore, required to register and fill in their particulars to be able to use the app but15.6% of app users highlight mandatory logins as the main reason for uninstalling an app. Sure, the login in information makes it easy for developers to interact with the users but if you want to appeal to impatient mobile users, give them the benefit of skipping this registration. A wise move would be to let the users have a feel of the app and if they like what they see, then ask them to register on the app for them to unlock more features.
3. Lack of proper feedback
When users perform an action on your mobile app, it would be wise to give a confirmation signal that the action is being processed. Something as simple as a change of color or a message to inform the user that an action is being processed would be ideal, unfortunately, most apps lack this feature. Users are, therefore, not certain if they have performed the rights actions on the app and this uncertain ruins their user experience and may cause stress and perplexity.
4. Not linking the apps to social media
Businesses need to understand that the people they are targeting are on social media and as such, they need to link their applications to such social accounts. By integrating their accounts with social media, users will be able to use their social media handles to log into the app and this eliminates the long registration process. Lengthy registration processes have been highlighted as one of the reasons people are not using certain apps and social media integration eliminates this altogether thus improving the overall user experience.
5. Redesigning without user feedback
With a lot of competition in the industry, the need to make changes to an app is obvious. Developers are looking to get an edge over their competitors and this means constantly redesigning their applications over and over again. Developers, however, need to realize that their primary focus should be to meet the needs of their users and if they have not asked for certain changes, then they probably are not necessary. Developers should only redesign their apps after getting feedback from their customers and if they don’t, they will end up making changes that no one asked for. Users will, therefore, have to learn how to use the new features once again and this will ruin their user experience.
Conclusion
Designing an app properly will unlock a lot of possibilities. Doing it poorly will ruin the user experience and make your users opt for other apps. This post highlights the mistakes that developers should avoid so as not to ruin the overall user experience.
About the Author: Randolph Bunnell is an experienced copywriter and marketing consultant. He has a deep knowledge of digital marketing and SEO. Randolph also has a medical background and enthusiastic about healthcare technologies.
