How To Design a Mobile App: A Beginner’s Guide

App design is concerned with the components users see, interact with, or touch within your application. Therefore, it’s an essential process in software development. An excellent mobile design can improve the user experience and overall satisfaction rate. In other words, how your application looks and functions can affect how a person feels when using it.

A good design can also help grow your customer or fan base. Users usually prefer applications with a decent user interface design. This is why poorly designed software commonly records high uninstall rates.

Another advantage of a good design is that it gives your application a professional look, making it stand out in popular app marketplaces like the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

An excellent mobile app design facilitates intuitive functionality. This means users can quickly figure out how things work in your application rather than waste time searching for what they need.

Wondering how to design a quality mobile app on your own? This article provides a step-by-step tutorial on designing an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly mobile application.

• Do market research
• Prepare your materials
• Design app mockups
• Create high-fidelity designs
• Look for feedback

1. Do market research

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You should engage in intensive market research before implementing your app idea. Market research involves gathering data about consumers and your target demographics, as well as your competitors. Analyzing this data can allow you to better plan your app, identify your niche and preferred features, and make other important adjustments and modifications. In short, market research can provide answers that facilitate better decision making.

Here are some market research techniques to try:

• Competitor research. Researching competition allows you to gain insight into how other companies or businesses perform, and to find gaps in their user experience. Pay attention to design strategies, distribution channels, and marketing platforms other apps use to stay ahead. Also, look at the unique features that help rival applications to attract and retain users. If you discover a promising feature, don’t be afraid to investigate it further and improve and implement it in your app design.
• Customer segmentation research. Customer segmentation involves dividing your target audience into smaller groups based on their behaviors, age, gender, or other variables. Trying to satisfy the entire market is usually next to impossible; users usually have unique traits, tastes, and preferences that you can’t fully consider. Customer segmentation research can help you identify your niche. As a result, you can dedicate more time and effort to satisfying customers in your niche, which can be more rewarding.
• Product development. Imagine dedicating a huge chunk of time to designing and developing an application only for it to flop. Product research can help you avoid such scenarios by allowing you to determine whether your app concept has value before you even begin development.
• Usability testing. This research is different from product research because it focuses more on the usability aspect of a product. Knowing how consumers will interact with various aspects of your application can help you improve your designs. You will need to conduct platform-specific (Android and iOS) research to discover how your application will function in different environments. Note that an Android app may follow design guidelines that are different from those of an iOS app.

2. Prepare your materials

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Before diving into the design process, you must clearly understand your application. A fully developed idea can help distinguish your application from those that already exist in the marketplace.

A well-defined idea also allows you to identify your target market and deliver more value to them. Furthermore, it enables you to determine the appropriate development and marketing platforms. Access to the right tools can boost your productivity and enhance app distribution. For instance, if you are targeting Android users, you may go with Android Studio as your development tool. If you are building a cross-platform application, you may use popular frameworks like React Native and Flutter.

Once you have an accurate picture of your application, you should choose a suitable name. You’ll want something that’s unique and reflects your brand. Using common names or trying to copy and rephrase those of your competitors may confuse users.

The next step is to outline the features that your Android or iPhone application will contain. If you are creating a finance app, you can define features like real-time expense tracking, bank account integration, two-factor authentication, and so on. Outlining your app’s features is important because it allows you to identify and add some things you may have missed during idea generation.

You should specify how your app features will solve your target audience’s problems. Remember to highlight how the app features will appeal to and attract new users.

Now that you understand your application, you should set goals to stay focused and motivated throughout the mobile app development process. Goals also help you measure progress. Here are some design goals to set.

• Cohesion. Set goals to ensure that the look and feel of your pages and components are consistent throughout the application.
• Usability. Clear usability goals can help you design simple user interfaces.
• Brand image. You need goals that outline your brand, vision, and design.

3. Design app mockups

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Designing application mockups gives you a rough picture of how the software will look on mobile devices. Mockups can bring out the content and functionality aspect of your application, which you can use to identify usability issues and correct them before they make it to production.

Professional designers use tools that save time and effort in mockup creation, allowing more focus to be placed on other aspects of development.

Here are some of the top tools for designing mockups.

1. Mockplus

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Mockplus is an online design tool that allows you to create mockups and wireframes for websites and mobile applications.

Top features

• Scalable design system. Mockplus allows you to create reusable and dynamic systems quickly. You can easily customize, manage, and scale these systems according to your needs.
• Unified collaboration. With Mockplus, you can work with other team members, including designers, front-end developers, and product managers, to complete your mockups. This is a crucial feature since most workplaces are team oriented.
• Fast prototyping. Mockplus provides the required icons and components for quickly developing app mockups.

2. Adobe XD

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Adobe XD is a vector-based design platform that provides numerous tools for crafting interactive prototypes and mockups.

Top features

• Cross-platform compatibility. Adobe XD is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. It’s suitable when working on cross-platform applications.
• Reusable components. Adobe XD features a wide range of UI components you can use to create mockups.
• Responsive design. Adobe XD allows you to resize numerous components and support devices with different screen configurations.
• Auto-animate. You can use Adobe XD to add animations and transitions to specific aspects of your design. This allows you to visualize how the application will respond to user interactions.

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3. Moqups

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Moqups provides a platform where you can collaborate with your team to create diagrams, prototypes, mockups, and wireframes.

Top features

• Collaboration. Moqups stores designs in the cloud, which makes them more accessible to team members. You can boost your creativity by working with individuals from remote locations to complete your design and mockups.
• A developed ecosystem. Moqups offers ready-to-use tools for creating prototypes, mockups, and wireframes. For instance, you can import popular Material Design and Font Awesome icons to use in your project. And you can use Moqups’ drag-and-drop tool to develop custom widgets.
• Scalability. Moqups allows you to handle projects of any size. You can easily scale your workflow depending on your needs.

4. Mockingbird

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Mockingbird helps you visualize your app idea using its drag-and-drop tools and templates.

Top features

• Fast visualization. You can use MockingBird’s drag-and-drop elements to quickly create a mockup of your application. You can also resize and rearrange UI elements automatically according to your screen’s real estate.
• Enhanced navigation. Mockingbird allows you to link and navigate between multiple pages. You can use this feature to feel the flow of your app and make necessary modifications.
• Improved collaboration. You can work with clients and teammates on a real-time basis. This feature improves your communication process since you can receive feedback and incorporate it into the design.

5. Artboard Studio

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Artboard Studio offers a platform where you can create, design, and animate your application.

Top features

• A wide variety of UI components. You can choose design elements from more than 10,000 mockup items and incorporate them into your app design.
• Automated layout systems. With Artboard Studio, you don’t need to manually resize or rearrange your UI components since the integrated auto layout system does these functionalities.

6. Figma

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Figma is cross-platform software that allows you to design and prototype web and mobile applications.

Top features

• Responsiveness. Figma provides auto layout components that can resize and rearrange themselves whenever the mobile screen size changes. You can further customize these auto-layout widgets by specifying the padding and spacing.
• Collaboration. Figma allows you to invite and collaborate with unlimited team members. These individuals can inspect design files and download code snippets for Android, iOS, and CSS for web design.
• Availability of plug-ins. Figma is compatible with different plug-ins, which you can use to improve your UX design. You can also use Figma to build plug-ins that you can import and use on other projects.

4. Create high-fidelity designs

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High-fidelity prototypes usually look and function similarly to the final product. You can use your mouse, keyboard, or touchscreen to interact with prototypes.

A huge advantage of high-fidelity designs is that they provide useful insights into how the end product will look; therefore, you can use these prototypes to test different aspects of your user interface. If you are looking for funding, you can even show high-fidelity designs to investors who might help fund your product or company.

You can easily create high-fidelity designs using applications like Adobe XD and Figma.

Here are some things to consider when producing a high-fidelity prototype.

• Color scheme. Ensure that you use the right color palette in your UI design to reflect your brand. When you apply a background color, the overlying text should still be easy to read. Try to be consistent in your UI design. For instance, use a specific color for your buttons.
• Typography. Avoid fancy fonts since they often have poor readability scores and can slow down your prototype. Instead, choose basic fonts that are more legible.
• Navigation. Use simple navigation that allows mobile users to easily move from one screen to another. You can add onboarding cues to aid navigation, especially for first-time users.
• Reduce clutter. Placing too many components and overcrowding the home screen, tab bar, or other pages in your app can lead to a poor user experience. Therefore, ensure that your visual design is as clean as possible.

5. Look for feedback

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Feedback is important in the design process because it allows you to identify new ideas and areas of improvement.

Once you generate your high-fidelity designs, share them with your friends, family, and potential users. Encourage these individuals to submit feedback, especially regarding your app’s navigation, layout, and general look and feel. You can also install the design on your phone for first-hand experience.

When the testing period expires, go through the feedback you’ve received and try to make the requested changes to improve your product design.

Don’t go it alone: Get professional design help

A good design creates an appealing and engaging application. While this tutorial covers much of what you need to design your own app, the one thing we can’t give you is the experience and knowledge that comes from years of working in the field.

If you need help with mobile app development or are looking for inspiration, start by finding and hiring professional mobile app designers on Upwork.

If you are a professional looking for work, Upwork can connect you to hundreds of prospective clients. Get started by listing and promoting your services on Upwork’s talent marketplace.

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Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this article. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation. Prices are current at the time of writing and may change over time based on each service’s offerings.