What Should You Be Doing In The Late Phase Of App Design?
When an app is in the late design phase, a whole slew of things have to come together. The only trouble is, they have to come together at the same time, in the same place. This is when things get a little tough and troubling because all parts of your business have to coordinate their efforts in the same direction. During app development, departments are basically told to go off and work on their own until every aspect is ready to move onto the next stage. Then departments will be brought together to finalize on a phase and then move forward. During the final stage of app development, you’re going to be meeting together like never before. Almost every person in every department will be working overtime to get the app finished. As the business owner, you need to have a clear plan for what you’re going to do in the final few weeks before launch day.
Adaptive and responsive design
Tunnel vision is something you need to be careful of. It can happen to anyone and lead to some serious implications. You don’t want to be a company that was so focussed on achieving the core goals of an app, that they don’t plan for the future needs of customers. Adaptive and responsive design is therefore of the utmost priority. No more do we see this than in the smartphone arena. Smartphones are able to utilize the latest software through updates for at least 5 years. This keeps customers happy as they don’t expect their apps and products to stop working after a couple of years. Inevitably, this has pushed up customer expectations and thus, your app must be adaptive to future changes.
Having a responsive design is going to allow you to build upon the app well after release. Instead of caging yourself into the concept of the app itself, design the app like a container, able to accept unforeseen things in the future. Although responsive design is not as flexible as adaptive design, it still allows you to accept contemporary designs albeit in a less desirable manner. The core is, keeping the app in a somewhat stringent form, allowing outside and new factors to be utilized, but not changing the app drastically. It’s more likely you will be using responsive design for customers using your app on an iOS device as it’s not as customizable as Android.
The challenge of insights
Above all else, the user experience is the area that needs to be the most refined. Your color theme and artistic design, won’t be accepted by everyone. Aesthetics are incredibly subjective and thus you shouldn’t try to please any side too much in this area. However, user experience can be deemed universal. A customer using your app in Singapore might have the same navigation issues as a customer in Finland. In the final phase of app development, user insights are going to act profoundly on your decisions. Interacting with consumers to get their feedback and insight is crucial. However, the challenge of insights is that they’re not observations. Insights can show you things you didn’t know existed. Seeing the app from a totally different perspective from you, consumers can show you flaws that were not even evident to your programming team.
With so many complex tests, insights and issues that need troubleshooting, how do you keep track of everything? A user research software will present to you a toolbox of solutions, helping you to garner as many insights as possible. Quality user insights can then be filtered, allowing you to make user-centric decisions. The digital experience of your app is massively improved by such tactile design choices. The software also gives you access to all valuable research methods, participant sourcing capabilities as well as qualitative and quantitative data. Scaling and automating the research process, you create a smooth cycle of efficient insight gathering and effective design altering.
Don’t go FOMO overboard
The simple fact of the matter is, the average smartphone user has a plethora of apps, and you’re just one of them. In a sea of apps, how can you stand out the most? Apps like LinkedIn and Facebook have chosen to go the route of, ‘everything is a notification’. Every little thing, from a post about a topic you’ve previously clicked for, a friend updating their status, to a news source posting a new article, is shown in your notification bar. This is a form of FOMO. The ‘fear of missing out’ is an extremely powerful sales tools. But it’s a prickly bush, not without its consequences for the app designer. Video games use this technique the most, as giving the user only a short amount of time to click on something such as a reward, clue or discount, traps them into a loop of FOMO and instant gratification.
The reason why many companies use FOMO is that, it’s very common for a customer to download your app and after a few days, simply forget it even exists on their device. But FOMO can lead to distrust and a feeling of exploitation. Users that aren’t affected by FOMO, will be even more likely to uninstall your app when they see countdown clocks under items they’re going to miss out on if they don’t keep tapping away. You must find other ways to make your app relevant for everyday use. Integrating your app with other systems such as for Google Suite, Gmail, YouTube and task management software for professionals is highly recommended.
Upfront security
When consumers download your app, you must have a pop-up page whereby your your security is explained. If someone else is trying to access one’s account via the app, the consumer should be notified via ways of a trusted contact. This can be through email, phone number, text or perhaps through the app itself in the form of a notification.
The final phase of app design is perhaps the most exciting. By utilizing research software that collates the best insights, you make highly effective user-oriented decisions. Utilize adaptive and responsive design for different platforms such as iOS and Android.
