Have you been noticing your app user base dwindling recently or your users spending less time on your app? Well, it could be for a variety of reasons but the most likely one is due to the user experience. If your users aren’t fulfilled by the experience of the app or even just tiny little details within the app then it can cause your user base to take a substantial hit and for you to lose users. As part of an app development company based in the UK, working around apps and researching the app industry I have gathered some tips to help improve user app experience.
1. Revamping Your App
The look of your app can be a reason that users begin to stray away from your app and use it less. Giving your app a total makeover can draw users back in especially if you make it more appealing than previously, but what to concentrate on when revamping?
- Sign up screens
Keep your sign up screens short and straight to the point, don’t make your users fill in lots of information that is essentially pointless because users don’t like long forms that they have to scroll and fill with a lot of information.
Name, date of birth, location (depending on the type of app), username, email and password is more than enough and if you offer in-app purchases then credit card information can be added later instead of the initial sign up.
- Colours
Picking the colours of your app carefully is a must do and believe it or not, colours are important and around 90% judgements about products are solely based on colours alone. As an article by shoutem.com wrote, if you are mainly targeting women use colours such as blue, purple and green but avoid orange, brown and grey as they are least liked by women.
If you are targeting men then use colours such as blue, green and black but avoid orange, brown and purple as they tend not to like them. When it came to the study on buttons, it was discovered that the “Get Started” button done 21% better when changed to red than when it was green.
However, it is also important to incorporate your brand's colours within your app as it can persuade users to buy if it has a connection with the brand.
- Transitions
Having a bland transition to another screen or page of your app is a huge turn off for users, animate your transitions to give your app more of a sleek style and look.
- Choose your images carefully
This one, for the most part, is common knowledge, if you choose images that aren’t related to what your app portrays or your business is about then users will become confused quickly. So for example; if your app is about dinosaurs then don’t post a picture of aeroplanes while talking about a T-Rex, yeah aeroplanes might be cool but they have nothing to do with dinosaurs.
2. Design For The Platform
What platform do you plan to target? Or do you plan to cross-platform your app? Either way, each platform has different needs and designs that you need to take into consideration. There is no sense in designing an app purely for iOS and then keeping the same build and trying to port it over to Android! You need to keep in mind each platforms differences.
3. Honesty Is The Best Policy
No one likes any type of deception, if you betray your user's trust then they will quickly become angry and ultimately lead to them uninstalling your app and possibly leaving bad reviews and passing them around by word of mouth which is a very powerful tool.
Be honest from the get go, let your users know exactly what they are signing up for and what they are sharing and who they will be sharing it with and give them the choice whether they want to share this information or not.
Where settings are concerned, don’t have them set to automatically be allowed let your users choose what settings they want to accept and what they don’t. Also, pull back a little on app permissions, don’t make it a requirement for your app to access contacts, emails, camera etc unless it really is a must because, in reality, it is just a violation of their privacy.
4. It's A Mobile Device, Not Web!
Your app is on mobile and not a web browser and you need to remember this as phone screens are smaller than PC or tablet with bigger text so you can’t overcrowd the screen. With this being said, due to smaller screens, the app needs to have a smoother and simpler navigation system as having everything too complicated can be frustrating, to say the least.
5. Delays
If there are any delays within your app whether it be a bug or for maintenance reasons then let your users know with a push notification or with a loading bar to let them know that the app is still functional, it may just take a little longer.
6. Error Messages
When it comes to error messages then don’t put a huge notification on the screen with an “ok” button, just a simple image and a re-direct back to the home screen is great. Like how google do when the internet is offline. They show a little dinosaur on the screen which doubles as a game but in the case of your app, just redirect back to the home screen.
7. Pay Attention To Customer Feedback
Don’t ignore your customer's feedback, your customers are your biggest critics and yes, I understand that it is hard to make all changes that customers want but taking your customers feedback on board and making the small changes that can be done will go a long way.
8. Following The Latest Trends
Following the latest trends can be great and can draw in more customers but make sure to keep them relevant to your business and always remember, though they can be great they may not always work out for you.
9. Keep It Social
This actually depends on the type of app you created but humans are naturally social creatures and love to share the aspects of their life or anything they find interesting so add some social features that allow them to share different aspects of your app.
There are certain types of apps to avoid with this including fitness apps as a lot of people are reluctant to share their weight or their weight loss journey, fertility apps as this is a very personal matter and other apps that are of a similar category.
10. Keep App Maintained
I previously wrote an article on why it is important to keep your app maintained but there are many factors that are beneficial to you and your customers by maintaining your app and keeping it maintained will make sure to keep your users happy.
11. Turn Actions Into Rewards
This again depends on the type of app you have but reward your users for using your app, whether that be giving them 2 days free of any premium services your app offers or earning points and trading them in for rewards.
12. Customer Testimonials
Have you been receiving great reviews from your customers/users? Then show them within your app! People love to see what others are saying and they can severely influence your users to continue to use your app.
13. Security
Security is very important, I can not stress enough how important it is. Data breaches are very common and your user needs to know that they are 100% safe on your app, so provide a badge of security to reassure them, don’t pass their data to third person companies and make sure your security is always up to date.
14. Notifications
Sending too many notifications will drive users away very quickly as they tend to get annoyed very easily with multiple notifications. The best way to do it is, send a notification every few days or so just to remind them of your app.
You could also talk about your app on a newsletter, your website. social media or through ads as marketing your app is done in many different ways not just through the app itself reminding customers to use your app.
15. Ads
Cut back on the ads. From what I have personally experienced especially with free apps, the number of ads I see is ridiculous! I understand that on free apps that is how revenue is made but on paid apps, I personally think there is no need.
If you want to use ads then that is up to you but you need to learn how to attract customers with ads and not drive them away.
16. Easy Contact
Make your contact information easy to find, this is very important. Customers and users will be less than thrilled if they can’t find your contact information easily, the reason they may need contact information is for tech support, payment support, information or to cancel a membership.
Of Course, this depends on the type of app you create as you may just need to have a tech support rather than all forms of contact for each reason.
What If They Don’t work?
I’m not going to guarantee that every single suggestion will work for you and maybe your app already has a good design, great, smooth features and you have already taken these on board but it still doesn’t seem to be working then the best you can do is listen to your users directly.
Your users will be honest with you and tell you exactly what is wrong and what needs to be improved but I am sure and very confident to say that half, if not all of these tips will work.
