The success of mobile applications depends on what target users need. Based on the functionality and features included in an app, users can either embrace the app or stay reluctant to use the app. That is why developers strive to develop applications based on user preferences. The features, functionalities, and overall outlook of an app reflect the insights collected from target users, and that is what user-centered design is all about.

Developing an app to be rejected by target users means a waste of time, resources, and effort. Keep reading this guide to understand everything about user-centered design and the role it plays in the mobile app development process.

What is user-centered design?

UCD – user-centered design is a mobile development strategy that aims at creating and delivering apps that meet specific user needs, are easy to use, and highly interactive. Ideally, the user holds a significant impact on the app development process because every action taken must align with the user’s approval or preferences.

Developers, therefore, must put the users as the center of interest when developing a mobile app. They have to understand user behaviors, preferences, and goals that they want to achieve through the mobile app.

User-centered design principles

The following principles are inevitable when building a user-centered design.

• Accessibility

Everyone, including those with disabilities, should access mobile apps seamlessly. Developers, therefore, should integrate different accessibility features like voice commands and screen readers. While the accessibility principle enhances a wider audience reach, it also shows the commitment to serve everyone.

• Iterative Design

Creating a user-centered design is an ongoing process that involves prototyping, collecting user feedback, and tailoring the design to align with the insights collected from users. The iterative design ensures the final app is refined to meet all the user’s requirements.

• Usability Testing

This involves testing the overall performance & functionality of the app with real users to identify and rectify possible issues, if any. This testing is important in ensuring the app is user-friendly and engaging throughout.

• User Research

In-depth research is inevitable when creating a user-centered design. The research is all about collecting valuable insights in relation to user wants, pain points, expectations, and behavior patterns. The information collected helps developers make informed decisions throughout the mobile app development stages.

• Keep it consistent

Consistency is key in user-centered design in mobile app development. This means users should enjoy a consistence experience with the product, despite the stage or process they are executing.

For instance, in the case of a business website, a user should learn and master the processes and steps to follow when using a different device.

• Use simple language

The simplicity of the app’s language keeps users engaged and enjoys seamless interaction with the app. Complex and technical terms and phrases can make some users find it hard to execute certain actions or processes. This makes it hard to use the app.

Therefore, as a developer, only focus on simple terms and texts that are relevant to the product’s functionality. Avoid extra details that aren’t relevant to the product’s usage; otherwise, it may make the app more clustered and confusing, thus making it hard for users.

• Adequate navigation mechanisms

As part of a good user experience, the user should be able to navigate through the app from one page to the other back without struggling. A user should understand the page they are on and what the page is all about. There should also be visible guidelines that guide the user when exiting the page.

• Error-free system

When using the app, users should achieve their objectives smoothly. Should they make a mistake, there should be protocol and guidance directing them to the appropriate process or steps to follow.

For instance, when filling in details in a form, a user-centered design should detect an error, if any, and notify the user immediately to correct it before continuing with the process.

Again, automated responses to questions create an interactive experience between the user and the app.

Advantages of user-centered design

So, why should developers adopt user-centered design principles and create user-centered applications? Below are some of the top benefits of building UCD.

• Enhanced engagement and retention

Every user looks for an app that offers a smooth user experience. As long as the content and all other components of the app are interesting, users will keep interacting and engaging with the app until they achieve their objectives.

Of course, once satisfied with the experience, users will return as they explore the app as many times as they want.

• promotes user satisfaction

User-centered design prioritizes what the users want. The final result will meet all user requirements, thus offering maximum satisfaction services. For instance, it is easy to use and navigate through a user-centered app with a personalized experience.

• Competitive advantage

The app development market is saturated. There are hundreds of applications solving many solutions in different industries. The best way to beat the competitive market and ensure the app stays in the market for a long is by building a user-centered app.

• Reduced development costs

Using feedback is important in the app development process. By collecting feedback from users and tailoring the app based on the feedback, developers eliminate the redesigning and revision processes, which could otherwise attract more costs.

Again, by testing the app with real users, developers can understand areas that need more work and adjustments to suit user requirements, a move that also eliminates the redesigning and revision processes after product launch.

• Increased user adoption

A user-centered mobile app attracts a large user base. It is friendly, easy to navigate, and rich in useful features that enhance the functionality and viability of the app. With such an app, users are likely to use it not once but as many times as they need it.

How to create user-centered design – step by step

Creating user-centered design requires developers to follow the steps explained below:

• User Research

Start doing detailed user research. This stage is all about collecting valuable insights regarding target user needs, preferences, and their general behavior with specific products.

You can employ methods like persona creation and conduct a series of interviews & surveys to collect information from target users.

While using interviews and surveys, make sure you ask as many valuable questions as possible.

• Define User Needs

With the information and insights you have collected, you cannot go a step further and define the exact needs and what the target audience expects from you. This step will help you lay the base of your design process, ensuring you cover every existing gap in customer needs. Under this step, you can define the following:

• User goals – determine the primary goals users want to achieve through your app. Is it all about making payments or buying things? Is it all about learning new skills, or is it about entertainment and reading the latest news? It can be anything, depending on the industry. Whatever the case, make sure you define everything at this phase.
• User stories – come up with user stories outlining some situations where users can engage and interact with your app. Through the stories, you will understand the app’s context better.

• Ideation and Design

At this point, you have the basics about users, including who they are, their behavior patterns, and what they love. You can use this information to brainstorm and formulate the best design ideas. You can create several design concepts before settling on the appropriate one.

At this phase, you do the following:

• Wireframing – involves creating a wireframe showcasing the projected structure and layout of the final app. While creating wireframes, use the insights you collected about user preference.
• Prototyping – involves creating engaging prototypes that align with user experience. The essence of these prototypes is to test the functionality and viability of the app before you start the development process. This will enable you to save time and costs, too.

• Usability Testing

With your prototypes, you can now test real user experience as you study their interaction and engagement. The usability testing stage helps developers identify areas that need more work and improvements, app challenges, and other related issues.

Under this phase, you can perform the following:

• User testing – involves onboarding a small group of users to test the prototype. As they interact with the app and explore different functionalities, take note of their behavior and reactions to determine the viability of the app.
• Task Completion – use this approach to evaluate how a user executes actions or processes using the app. Check any issues with navigation to determine how to rectify the issue before the final product release.

• Feedback Analysis

Next, you need to analyze and evaluate the information collected at the usability testing stage. Determine the areas experiencing difficulties and need improvement. The insights collected at the feedback analysis stage play a big role in making the next phase’s decision.

While performing feedback analysis, you can use the following methods:

• Qualitative Feedback – review frustrations from users, their suggestions, and comments to collect useful insights. This approach is more of a user experience than just numbers.
• Quantitative Data – check the ease of completing tasks, error rates, and time it takes to execute a task. This approach is effective in determining the usability of the design.

• Design Iteration

You can now refine and tailor your design based on feedback analysis and usability testing insights. As you implement the changes, strive to ensure a remarkable user experience, enhanced user flows, and overall usability of the app. Here, perform the following:

• Create Visual Design – create visual design elements, including images, typography, and colors, giving the design a desirable outlook.
• Implement Changes – based on the feedback you gathered in the initial stages, modify the design to suit user preferences.

• Repeat Testing and Iteration

As a way of polishing up the final product, do more testing and iteration to refine and produce a product based on feedback from real users.

You can do several tests and iterations as possible, depending on the complexity of the changes and issues arising.

• Finalize Design and Development

After a series of several tests and iterations, you can now finalize the user-centered design process and continue with the app development stages. Of course, you will integrate all the user insights you gathered when creating a user-centered design to create an app that meets and aligns with user wants.

Note: Airbnb is an ideal example of an app development business whose focus is mainly on user-centered design.

While the app’s functionality is tops, its success is connected to the ability to deliver what the users want. The stakeholders invested more in collecting user insights and using the information to tailor the app’s functionality and overall user experience.

Today, people can travel smoothly and secure accommodation in a smooth manner, thanks to Airbnb’s invention.

Challenges of developing a user-centered design and solutions

Developers often experience the following challenges when developing user-centered design

• Communication challenges

When developers and target users are of different backgrounds and different goals, it becomes hard to communicate on the same line.

While communication is key, developers can implement methods such as persona, surveys, and interviews to collect useful information to make decisions.

It is important that developers use simple language, avoiding complex and technical phrases to enable users to understand everything easily.

• Time and resource challenges

The process of creating a user-centered requires more time and resource investment. If the resources and time are limited, developers can implement lean and agile methods to solve the limited timeline factor.

On matters of costs, developers can leverage the use of existing design systems and existing data & tools to minimize app development costs.

• User diversity and variability

Not all users prefer or need specific features and functionalities in an app. This gives developers a big challenge: meeting different user preferences when creating a design.

The best solution to this is for developers to create an all-inclusive design by following the best practices and principles of an all-inclusive design.

Again, when doing research, it is essential to get insights from diverse users with varied preferences.

• User resistance and conflict

Sometimes, user conflicts may arise due to reluctance or conflicting interests, and this will affect the success of an app. This can impact the developer’s efforts, time, and resources dedicated to putting up such an app.

The solution to avoid user conflicts and resistance is identifying the reasons behind resistance and solving them. Again, it is important to include the user’s overview during the first phases of app development to understand their pain points and work on them early enough.

• User involvement and engagement

Users play a big role in helping developers collect insights on the entire app development process. However, finding and onboarding users can be a challenging task. After all, most users won’t be available to take interviews, surveys, or any other method used to approach them.

To solve this, developers can implement ethical and appropriate ways to attract user participation. Gamification, reward programs, and recruitment platforms are some of the ways to attract users to get involved in the process.

Conclusion

Mobile apps are important in different industries. As a result, creating a user-centered design is a crucial consideration to ensure the success of an app.

User-centered design involves prioritizing what users need and developing an app suitable to meet all that users want. This strategy enables developers to develop an app that is not only functional but an app that delivers a top-notch user experience.

As you create a user-centered design, make sure you do in-depth research, understand your target audience, and perform more tests until you get a suitable design.

Any queries? Contact our UI/UX design company : Aalpha information systems!