Follow These Best Practices for Mobile App Success

Key points to keep in mind while building your mobile app

Did you know less than .01% of mobile apps are considered successful?
I know...looking at that number can feel a little discouraging.

But it’s important to keep it in mind.

Studying unsuccessful apps can give you invaluable insight, and so many of them fail for countless different reasons. -Click to Tweet

Maybe they didn’t fit the market they were intended for. Maybe they didn’t provide the kind of experience users expected. Or maybe they just didn’t go through enough testing in order to fully function.

Whatever the reason, there’s no ignoring there are certain areas in building a successful app that simply can’t be ignored.

The goal, of course, is to steer yourself in the right direction.

By taking action right now, you can set your mobile app up for success right from the start. Follow the best practices below to get started.

Provide Instant Value for Users

There are literally millions of apps in the world. And as unique as your own is, it’s unlikely you won’t have competition in the market.

That means, if you don’t give your users a reason to stick around right from the beginning, they’ll probably start looking for other options.

One of the best ways to provide instant value is by giving users a “win” during their initial onboarding.

If you were building a project management app, for example, your onboarding sequence could lead them through the process of creating a task and assigning it to an employee. The user would come out on the other end having already taken a real task off their plates. Now that’s a valuable win.

Be bold about making sure users know the type of value you offer. They’ll be much more likely to continue using your app.

Remove Any Extra Clutter

Mobile apps can easily become jumbled, cluttered, and confusing — especially when they’re a responsive version of an already busy desktop application.

Even with all the “phablets” in the world, phone screens are still really small when it comes to using apps. Now, usually, you don’t notice it all that much. But download an app that has buttons too close or way too much content on a single page, and you’ll soon realize just how small those screens really are.

To start, realize that white space (aka empty space) can be your friend. It lets users breathe while using your app and prevents information overload.

For that reason, if any features or design elements of your app aren’t absolutely necessary, remove them.

It’s like when you walk into a room with really small ceilings, no windows, and tables piled high with knick knacks and papers. You instantly feel like you want to leave. Walk into a room with high ceilings, tons of light, and clean surfaces, though, and you immediately feel refreshed.

Mobile apps aren’t all that different, so try to clean up any clutter.

Make it Fully Responsive

You’ve heard over and over how your app should be responsive.

And for good reason.

A common decision I see developers making is to create a desktop version of their app and a mobile version. So, their index page might be “myapp.com” on desktop. On mobile, it might be “myapp.com/mobile.” Technically, they’re two completely different pages, and when on mobile, the desktop page would redirect to the mobile version.

The problem is, mobile versions are still a static width. That means they’ll look and act differently on smaller phones or larger tablets than what they’re made for. Plus, mobile versions are typically a slimmed down rendition of a full web page, meaning certain elements are often cut out. Not only does that give users a more limited experience when trying to use your mobile app, but Google also takes note if you’re giving users a different experience dependent on screen size (hint: they don’t like it).

Even if you’re just building a mobile app, though (with no desktop version involved), it’s still important to make it responsive so users can enjoy your app on any sized device, whether it’s on a vertical screen, in landscape mode, or on a tablet.

Consider Your User's Journey

“User flow” is a term worth getting familiar with during the design and development process.

It’s a way of describing the path a user takes to navigate your app.

Most importantly, user flow should always be goal oriented.

That means, when a user lands on your app, you should intuitively walk them through the process of taking whatever actions your app is there for. In other words, one step should lead to another, and another, and so on, until the end goal is met. At no point should a user be left wondering what to do next — that’s the moment they’ll drop off.

One way to keep a user’s journey easy is to group tasks together with main tasks and subtasks. So, if the goal is for a user to create a new project in a project management app, you might group all subtasks together, with the end goal being the creation of a new project.

Subtasks could be things like:

Setting a due date
Creating tasks within a project
Assigning tasks to different people
Uploading files for each task

With relevant tasks grouped together, the user’s journey will be easier and more direct.

Another way to create a more streamlined user flow is to limit the amount of information you ask for. Instead, pre-fill your app with information they’ve already provided. If a logged-in user was going to send in a support ticket, for example, pre-filling the ticket with their email address means they won’t have to type it in themselves. It’s a small step that can make a big impact.

It doesn’t stop there, though. You can also do things like have each screen present a single task or goal to make the journey more direct. You can also animate a sequence that takes users through specific steps. There’s really no limit to how easy you can make user flow within your app.

Create Amazing and Captivating Onboarding

A solid onboarding sequence is one of the most important things you can build for your app. It should welcome users aboard, show them around your app, help them complete a task, and leave them feeling confident about where to go next.

The other day, I tried out an app that lets you create pop ups, email automations, and other opt-in features. The initial onboarding sequence was going well — I was even thinking to myself how easy it was. Halfway through, though, the sequence hit a bug and stopped working. And in that moment, I realized how important that onboarding sequence actually was because I had absolutely no idea what to do next.

I’d already created half a form by following the onboarding steps, but when the sequence broke, I had to click around for about 10 minutes to figure out how to finish.

The process was annoying, especially because by that point, I knew how easy it should have been.

Make sure your users aren’t left guessing.

Keep It Simple at the Start

As much as you want to build all the exciting features you’ve come up with, keep your app simple to start. Overloading it from the beginning — especially before you’ve gone thorough live testing — could lead to speed issues, navigation problems, a poor user experience, and more.

Follow the MVP theory and only build extra features as you measure and learn. In other words, start small, gather feedback, then iterate. Keep rinsing and repeating, and soon, your app will be feature rich, but only with functionality actually needed and wanted by users themselves.

Conclusion

To be incredibly blunt, most mobile apps fail. But yours doesn’t have to be one of them. With a strategic plan, you can set yourself up for success right from the start.

Keep these key aspects in mind when building your app:

Provide value to your users right away. The quicker they receive help, information, or even a small win from your app, the more likely they are to stick around.
Remove any extras so users don’t feel cramped, cluttered, or overwhelmed. Remember what it’s like to stand in a small, dark room, with stacks of papers all over. Contrast that with standing in a bright, open, and airy room. You want your users to feel refreshed when they log in, just like you would in that second room.
Make it responsive because you can’t control what type of device users access your app from. It could be on a 4-inch screen or a 10-inch tablet. Not having a responsive app would give both those users very different experiences.
Consider user journey. Make sure the steps a user takes flow from one to the next intuitively. Try grouping tasks together and make sure every step has a goal.
Ace the onboarding. This is one of the most important processes a user will go through on your app. Give them small wins along the way and never leave them guessing. They should come out on the other side knowing exactly what to do next.
Start simply. Create an app with only the essential features, then improve and add to that as you gather real user feedback. By keeping it simple from the start, you won’t waste time on features users might not actually need. Instead, you can put more focus into every one of the best practices above.

Most unsuccessful apps reach the point of failure because they were lacking in some crucial area. Each of the aspects mentioned above will help round out your app and help give it the best chance possible of reaching the top. Just remember, always keep your users in mind first.