When it comes to mobile app UI and UX experiences, users can be very picky.
The mobile app marketplace is extremely competitive, with dozens of competitor for every successful app out there.
Often, it’s not the best mobile app that wins and retains users, but the app that best combines value with effective UI and UX design.
Why Great UI and UX Design Is Extremely Important to an App’s Success
Even apps that deliver lots of value for users can fall flat when it comes to acquisition and retention when they’re not easy to use, or easy on the eyes.
In fact, in a study led by Stanford professor Dr. BJ Fogg, 75% of an users judge a website’s credibility based on how it looks, making judgments in just 3.42 seconds. Additionally, 88% are unlikely to return to a website after a bad experience — an experience that could potentially be the result of poor UI and UX design.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to mobile app UI design. The first is that the designer has the best understanding of what makes a great user interface. The second is that you and find the best insight into UI and UX design from the crowd.
Are crowds full of wisdom that can tell us which new trends will take hold and which won’t? Can the crowd even go so far as to predict whether certain apps or UI/UX concepts will be a success or a failure?
It turns out that the answer to both questions is often “yes,” provided their insights are gathered the right way. When people are polled as a group, groupthink can affect their answers. But when they’re polled independently, crowdsourced UI and UX feedback can be extremely helpful.
Below, we’ve listed three ways you can use the crowd to create a killer mobile app UI and UX for your mobile app.
The Value of Testing Your UI Throughout the Design and Development Process
One of the best ways to use the crowd to improve your UI is to constantly test your throughout the development process.
Instead of testing once right before you launch, use the crowd to test on a stage by stage basis as your application goes from a product demo into an alpha release, a beta release, and finally a release for the Play and App Stores.
Platforms like UserTesting let you tap into a huge audience of testers, with live video and comments from each tester. An audience of 10-20 testers for your app will help you identify UI and UX issues that occur frequently.
Once you’ve used this crowdtesting data to identify major UI/UX issues, you can take action and solve them before moving onto the next stage of development, helping you iron out your app’s weaknesses long before its release.
The Necessity of Testing Across a Range of Devices
One of the biggest challenges of mobile app UI UX testing is that user experience can differ greatly from one device to another.
An iPhone user might have a completely different opinion of your app than a tablet user.
Likewise, people with new hardware might love your app’s performance, while people with older devices might find it frustratingly slow. When you only test on a limited range of devices, it’s hard to find and fix these issues.
With MyCrowd, you can run UX tests across a diverse range of hundreds of devices and operating systems, giving you a greater variety of feedback on your app’s looks and usability.
Instead of relying on one device for your UI and UX feedback, you receive insights from a diverse range of users.
Test Forms, Checkouts and Other Essential Parts of Your Mobile App
While most users will tolerate minor UX issues on non-essential pages, few will keep using your app if essential pages don’t perform effectively and predictably.
One easy way to double-check your app’s essential pages is to carry out UI/UX tests only for the most important pages.
Using UserTesting or MyCrowd, carry out UX tests for essential pages like your website or app’s checkout, user registration form, and registration page.
This 80/20 approach to UX testing means you’ll create an optimal experience on all of the parts of your app that truly matter for user retention without spending your budget on UX and UI tests for pages that are rarely used or non-essential.
