How a User-Friendly App Can Help to Grow Your Business Audience

When starting the work on a new app development project, we always keep in mind that there are two main goals for a successful app: meeting the business needs and satisfying the users' wishes. While these are interconnected, they are not the same. More precisely, happy users mean thriving businesses. When it is clear what any app owner would want (profitable application, high download and user retention rates, etc), the path to satisfying users might be more complex. Let’s explore how to create a user-friendly app that helps solve problems with ease.

What is a User-Friendly Application?

What makes up a user-friendly mobile app? The main difference between just good enough and user-friendly apps is that the latter offer extra value by solving users' problems with convenience and fun. A user-friendly app doesn’t just take you from point A to point B. It makes the journey seamless and enjoyable.

Remember that the main task of any app is to help users resolve their requests with maximum ease and in a pleasant way. Each app niche now has dozens of solutions competing for the users' attention. The App Store alone has around 4.5 million apps. That’s why you need to work on making your user interface better than competitors by offering higher value. Building a user friendly interfaces app should be the first thing on your “perfect app” to-do list.

7 Features of a User-Friendly Application

Let’s now discuss the top 7 user-friendly app features to introduce in your app.

Clear navigation

First things first, navigation is one of the most critical points defining the user experience with your app. Your app can have many useful features that take it a level higher than the competitors. But if the navigation in the app is not intuitive, confuses the users, and doesn’t showcase the app’s potential, the cutting-edge features won’t be of any good.

Personalization

Personalization is one of the recent trends in mobile app development. And for a good reason: it is a sure way to create a deeper connection with a user and give them a unique experience. Personalization helps users make decisions easier and find the content they like in a few seconds.

For example, your e-commerce store can provide purchase suggestions based on previous orders and viewed items. Or maybe your fitness app can offer new workouts based on the ones the user has completed before? Tailored content, smart suggestions, and personalized offers are the must-have elements of user-friendly app design.

Clear data policy

With the rising concerns around data safety and leaks, your app users need precise and clear information about which data you are collecting. Of course, users should also be able to accept or reject the data policy and not share any information at all.

Remember to ask users about accessing their data and write an easy-to-understand policy explaining what kind of information you need and why. Clear data policy is especially important for applications dealing with lots of sensitive data, such as fintech and healthcare applications.

Onboarding

Onboarding is the first interaction between your app and the new user, excited to enjoy it. That’s also a decision point as to whether your app stays or gets deleted. A coherent onboarding process is a sure way to make your application more user-friendly.

Onboarding serves two purposes: showcasing the features of your app and explaining to users how to get the best out of it. Onboarding should walk the user through each of the app’s screens while giving helpful tips.

Gamification

Gamification might not seem like a compulsory element for a mobile app, but it definitely is one of the features of a user-friendly app. Building a user-friendly interface of an application means going the extra mile to make your users happier and more satisfied. This includes making the user’s experience more engaging through gamification.

Gamification suits productivity, education, and fitness apps. A system of points, levels, or rewards is motivating users to keep up with their habits and come back to the application.

Push notifications

Push notifications are a convenient method of staying in touch with your users and giving them much-needed updates. When we are talking about on-demand service apps, such as taxi or food delivery ones, your users need to receive information about their order status with no delays without opening the app each time. At the same time, e-commerce or other app types might benefit from push notifications by sharing unique discounts with their customers. One way or another, push notifications are among the highly recommended features of a user-friendly application.

User support

You should never leave your users alone with their problems. Whether it is a question about some of the features or issues with payment, there must be a way for your users to reach out and get some assistance.

Some of the options might include FAQs, chatbots, support via email or social media, and chats with specialists online. It all depends on your possibilities and app type. While hiring a team of customer support is more expensive but somewhat necessary for bigger retail companies, a chatbot API or an FAQ section might be just enough for a startup not dealing with direct sales.

Growing User Audiences with a User-Friendly App

A user-friendly interface of applications is a key to success in the highly competitive mobile app market. The biggest advantage of investing in a user-friendly interface of an app is standing out in the market and motivating users to prefer you over the competitors.

The impact of a user-friendly interface for the app includes

• Higher user satisfaction rates
• Higher user retention rates
• Higher user engagement rates
• More downloads
• More brand advocates

Think about this — would you as a fitness app user prefer just a plain app that allows you to track your run (without even explaining which GPS or personal data they are storing) or a solution that gives you extra value, such as gamification elements to encourage you to exercise more and push notifications reminding you about your weekly run? The choice is rather easy, isn’t it?

Consider Perpetio Your Trusted Partner

We at Perpetio are the advocates of convenient, responsive design. We know first-hand about the impact of the user-friendly app. Providing both separate UI/UX design services and all-around full-cycle app development services, we learned from practice which points are must-haves for a truly user-friendly Android app or iOS solution. Let’s take a look at an example from our experience.

Recently, we worked on a UI/UX design project for an online medical consulting app. This solution allows users to find a doctor online, read reviews, sign up for a virtual visit, send text messages, and talk with a professional via video conferencing. Additionally, there is an automated diagnostics tool.

To make this application a user-friendly one, we worked on:

• Onboarding presenting the top app features
• Intuitive, well-organized navigation with an in-app search bar
• Clear data policy, safe video conferencing, and medical data protection
• Push notifications reminding about the appointments and new messages
• A possibility to leave a review for a doctor

As a result, the Perpetio team created not just another telemedicine app, but a solution that is enhanced by reliable data security, simple onboarding, and a clear user journey.

Final Thoughts

The current mobile app market calls app owners for extra effort. Just offering a set of features is not enough anymore; the feature set has to be wrapped in a handy UX and visually attractive UI.

Remember that most of the potential users don’t simply want to get something done with your app; they actually want to enjoy doing it. And adding user-friendly elements is a sure way to bring a bit of joy to resolving any type of request. That’s why user-friendly apps' impact includes higher user engagement and retention rates: your users simply want to come back to your solution because they like it!

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