‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression’
– a known actuality that we all have been experiencing since years and
holds true even today and a web application is no exception. Assume
seeing a web app with most unattractive and inefficient features – you
would obviously carry a very negative first impression, even though it
may have a useful background and intent. Hence, what really plays a very
significant role, in culling out a perfect web app design and
attracting clients is the web app design approach
that is followed in order to come up with a user friendly, alluring and
robust app. There are many factors that are responsible to achieve such
a design standard that succeeds in retaining old and developing new
customers.
Before we move on the fundamental
principles of a perfect web app design, we need to understand what the
‘wrong’ factor is. Basically, it is the lack of understanding the
business requirements and the lack of involvement of the designers’
right from the start. This leads to an unbalanced load on the
developers’ shoulders, whereas actually, it is not their cup of tea. And
the end result is frustrated clients, dissatisfactory implementations
and minimized ROI.
Top 10 Web App Design Trends Ensuring Success and Customer Retention
In order to come up with a creative as well as stable solution, there are certain web app design trends that are followed via certain tools and technologies, that give a glimpse of how best can we generate a perfect design. Let us have a look at the trends today:
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Knowing the User Better
It is very vital to understand the fact
that whatever web app design trends you are following, should keep in
mind the needs and requirements of your users primarily and not what the
developers want or what trend is in now. After all, they are the ones
who are going to use the app to its fullest. Even, in the clutter of
clients, you must actually target the end users and not the core team,
who is involved in the decision making. This gives a transparent picture
of what is actually the process flow needed by them.
-
Be Consistent All Over
Sometimes, under the purview of
attracting clients and making them happy, web app design guidelines
focus on following a variety of standards and patterns all over the app.
That is not the apt roadmap since end users look for a consistent and
common behaviour app all over. Be it on the front face or the backend,
they would wish to observe a similar pattern and thereby, go closer to
the functioning of the app. An ideal way to maintain standardization is
to have a thorough and proper documentation of the guidelines so that it
serves a dual purpose – to follow a similarity pattern as well as users
can have instant access to it.
-
Access to Comprehensive and Continuous Help
It is important to inform your end users
time and again, about the status of the system and ways and means to
come out of any unintended trouble. Even if any activity is going on,
the users should be informed about it. Risk mitigation also plays an
important role by avoiding the occurrence of errors. The latest web app
design best practices talk about availability of online documentation
fed into databases and access to a variety of videos and audios to guide
further.
-
Proper Grouping of Elements
Since there are numerous elements
involved in web app designs, it is always a best practice to group
similar objects together. It may look weird by when actually done, you
realize how easy it would be to access that information, whenever
needed, else those parameters would be all scattered around.
-
Roadmap Access to Users
For any user to be happy and content with
the web app, it is essential that there is a defined roadmap for the
app. There has to be fitted elements in the app, as the web app design
pointers showcase, that will guide the user every minute about its
location and further steps to perform.
-
Provide a Realistic First time Look
Whenever we test or implement, we are
used to seeing a testing setup full of data of different varieties. But,
that is not exactly the case in a live scenario. Initially, the users
are going to face a web app with bare minimum data and then with further
implementation, there will be a list of files of data that will build
up. Hence, according to web application design basics, there should be a
reality check of any app, prior to implementation.
-
Swift Loading
Psychologically, it is very satisfactory
for end users to either see a web page getting loaded quickly or get a
‘Loading…’ message with a progress bar and stay connected with what is
going on. Though it may sound so simple and fundamental, it plays a very
important role in creating a good first impression on the client.
-
Create Prototypes
To have a primary look at how the actual
look will be is very important. These prototypes, as per web app design
ideas, create a basic look and feel of the app to-be and hence give a
sense of security and satisfaction about how the actual web app will
look like.
-
Don’t Settle for all that your Client wants
Your client may want quite a few things
but when analysed technically, its feasibility may be disappointing. So
going by the gut feeling and by analyzing its importance, you need to
take a final call of how many clients based features are to be
incorporated, phase wise and have a mutual consent with the client,
prior to designing and developing the web app. This would be a balanced
and practical approach to a successful app.
-
Follow the Agile Approach
Going by today’s trending methodology –
the Agile approach, it is the best decision to follow it. The iterative
approach, being adopted in the agile method, will surely help in testing
each and every iteration, as it completes, thereby, leading further, to
a properly testing and tried product and hence when it comes to final
implementation, it’s a safe deal.
When it comes to a standardized and
robust app, these Web App Design Best Practices surely help out in
culling out a visually alluring and efficiently operating web app and
form the basic fundamental building block of web app designing.
Original Source.. How to Allure Everyone with a Perfect Web App Design? at ValueedgeSolutions Blog
