Evaluate app design

In 2016, users no longer accept friction. By iteratively developing and evaluating your app design using a scrum process, you can ensure the quality of the design. Ensuring quality does not only mean that the design looks good. Good design goes much deeper. In this blog we take a closer look at how Coffee IT evaluates an app design.

During development, what the user expects and wishes must be taken into account. The design should work intuitively. Coffee IT works iteratively, so that after each iteration we look at the usability of the design together with users and evaluate the app design. This goes through different methodologies to test the user experience.

A mistake that is often made is that the client thinks he knows exactly what the user wants. I can say from experience that this is not the case. There are two ways to find out what the user wants.

The first is by interviewing him, this is called: customer validation. The purpose of this is to validate through open questions that the potential user is actually experiencing the problem. This should be step 1 of the entire app development process.

The second is by testing prototypes of the design and evaluating the results. Various paper prototypes are then developed. These are then tested among users.

That's how we came, during the development of Swab, found out that creating household was too complicated. Which caused us to lose users. Following this discovery, we simplified this process, resulting in 32% fewer users leaving the app at this point. Later in this article, we will dive deeper into the importance of metrics in an app.

During these user tests, it is often also apparent what the important functions are. This is valuable feedback as these features should be most prominent in the app design. In addition, an app is better off doing 1 thing very well than 10 things a little.

To evaluate the app design in understanding the user is important.

Frictionless

The term frictionless is becoming more and more important and popular in numerous fields. A frictionless experience means the app is intuitive and smart. With a good app design, the user does not have to stop to think about how to proceed. And the app should save time for the user wherever it can. According to Google research, the average user uses their smartphone 150 times a day, with an average session duration of 1,18 minutes. These are a huge number of sessions of short duration.

If an app causes friction, 66% of users leave the app immediately, and 40% of them never come back. These numbers clearly show the importance of good app design. The numbers come from a Google study called: Micro moments.

Metrics

To gain insight into the friction points of an app, a metrics methodology must be implemented. It allows you to evaluate the app design. This could be, for example, Google Analytics or a platform specialized in app metrics, such as Fabric's Answers. Measuring is knowing. During an Agile process, the priority is largely determined by the friction points. Fewer points of friction means a higher conversion rate.

Metrics provide insight into where the user spends the most time in the app, how they use the app and where and why they leave the app. This data is essential for the further development of the app.

Coffee IT works through a Scrum process. We involve the user in the development process as much as possible so that major problems are discovered as early as possible. In the Scrum process, the client and contractor work together as a team. We, as Coffee IT, have experience in designing, realizing and testing apps. However, we do not have the same deep knowledge of the client's market as the client itself. That's why it's important to work together and share ideas. To achieve the best possible result and to provide the user with a frictionless experience.

How can Coffee IT help

Coffee IT can help you develop your app in different ways. We can develop and test the entire app design. Coffee IT has both UI and UX experience to fulfill user's wish. If you already have an existing app, we can update its design or advise you on friction points for the user. We will then investigate this in order to provide you with a substantiated and thorough result.

“In 2016, users no longer accept friction” was the first sentence of this article. This sentence also covers the full meaning of the article. Users have a high quality standard and your app must meet them. Otherwise, the user will leave the app and 40% will not come back.