When building a brand-new mobile app from scratch, you have the opportunity to learn from what has come before. There are so many apps out there and many have a lot of feedback and reviews from users. This information is gold because you can put it into your design and make sure you’re providing what people want right from the beginning.
Our essentials design list
If you do nothing else while planning your mobile app, we believe that you should ensure you cover these four points:
- A responsive design – Not all phones are the same dimensions. In fact, the array of smartphones out there with different sizes for their screens is almost frightening. On top of that, there’s tablet dimensions to contend with too. Your app will do best if it is able to adapt and respond to the screen size of the device it is on in order to give each user a great experience.
- Think touch screen not typing – An app on a touch-screen device is not a great place to expect people to do a lot of typing. If users need to fill in details to use the app or to make a purchase, try to keep the amount of actual typing required to a minimum. This can be done through multiple choice selection on form fields, and through smart auto-fill options. Navigation should also be done through tapping or swiping, and not a search function you need to type into.
- Offline capabilities – Considering the cost of mobile data in South Africa, this one should be a no-brainer. It’s important to provide some functionality offline on your app, even if it’s just the FAQs and the help section. If you require people to input information, make sure that can be stored natively when offline and then uploaded to your system once the device is connected to WiFi. Your users will really appreciate being able to access some areas of the app without having to log into the cloud each time they open it.
- A way to contact you – One of the key reasons people will download a mobile app for a company is to have an easy line of communication with the brand. Make sure your users know that they can get in touch via the app for customer queries and to provide feedback on their app experience.
Ready to get your own mobile app?
At Netgen, we specialize in building mobile apps that provide great functionality for the end-user. Our team of experts also knows how to develop an array of features to ensure that your app does what you want it to do.