Indglobal Digital – 10 UI/UX Strategies To Increase User Engagement For Your Mobile Apps

Do you wish to construct such a mobile app that your customers will absolutely fall for and admire? Well , you are at the perfect page then. Our proficient mobile app developers at Bangalore suggest ways by which you can enhance mobile app engagement and user experience.

Introduction: In recent days, Mobile devices have become essential tools for connectivity with several mobile apps that instill life into the smartphones. As per a Marketing Charts report. around 70% of digital media time rises from mobile apps. Mobile app engagement and mobile app retention are the two parameters that basically determine the success of an application.
Engagement describes how active users are on the application whereas Retention describes the percentage of an app’s users who return to that particular app within three months of the first session. It is important to note here that each brand will have an individual definition of engagement as well as retention, based on the nature of the app. IndGlobal Digital Pvt. Ltd.- the best mobile app development company in India suggests the following effective mobile UX strategies to increase mobile app engagement and experience.

effective Means to enhance the App Engagement & User Retention

1. Efficient Onboarding

Though it seems simple, yet many of the apps do not initiate an efficient onboarding process. Make your onboarding process as intuitive and simple as possible. The more complex it is to begin using an app, the more likely users will abandon it. 

Here are some methods to simplify the user onboarding process: 

1. Reduce the number of steps that are required to sign up or create an account. Try implementing multiple registration options such as login with Facebook or Google, for example.
2.  Introduce the app’s functionality throughout the onboarding experience, but don’t overload users right away.
3. Offer feature education through action to reveal the primary gestures as in the app experience.

2. Make use of Push Notifications in the correct way 

Reports say that users who experience personalized brand interaction are more likely to return to an app for more sessions. For instance, if you enter a physical store and are not acknowledged, you would be disappointed with the customer service. An interaction can be kept as simple as sending a push notification thus welcoming the users or providing them with the useful information as they progress through the app. Successful apps use this type of interaction by being strategic in how they can reach out to users to shape up the customer journey. For example, providing relevant deals based on location and usage patterns can be an effective tactic for promoting app sessions. Interacting with users also holds a good gesture to re-engage users who dropped out from the conversion funnel.  

3. In-App Messages

If you app experience is in proper alignment with a user’s needs and preferences, the more likely he/she is to continue using the product. In-app messages are important notifications that can include information about app issues, payment failures, or version upgrades. You should ensure that every message you send will be relevant to every user and segmenting your audience thus gives you the ability to ensure that the information they receive is valuable to them. 

To accomplish this, some apps leverage few device capabilities such as location to target specific users by tailored messages with real-time updates and links to personalized content.

4. Promotion Offers And Incentives

If your  business model permits you the ability to offer your users a reward or loyalty program, it’s crucial to capitalize on the opportunity. These programs not only incentivize users to use the product or get the service, but also loyalty programs make them feel significant and vital to a brand. 

Apps that use in-app purchasing (particularly QSR apps) as a monetization model, will benefit from time-sensitive discounts, while premium apps can incentivize users along with usage-based rewards instead of monetary discounts.  

5. Establish Two-Way Communication

Consumers will always wish to build relationships with brands, if they feel valued and appreciated. Therefore, opening a line for two-way communication is extremely significant. Receiving your customers feedback helps you gather information related to the customers requirements, resolve customer issues, and improve product functionality over time. 

Additionally it helps you to be able to hear about queries before a negative review is posted in your online store. Showing prompt responsiveness and addressing the questions or concerns will boost your engagement and retention rates significantly, encouraging long-term brand loyalty. 

Enhance Mobile App Engagement with The following UX/Ui Strategies

1. Seamless App Navigation

Your users should have a clear idea about how the apps work or the different sections, and how to use them when they open the app. You obviously don’t want your users to spend 10 minutes or so trying to figure out how to navigate within the sections. 

Few basic design tactics, like labeling buttons, providing clear menu categories etc. can be helpful. Make sure the navigation buttons are visible, so that your users don’t have to search for them. 

Another efficient way to increase mobile app engagement can be achieved by including a small tutorial whenever a new user signs up. The tutorial should be lucid enough to explain the main functions of the app quickly and clearly. 

2. Readability

Nowadays People are using mobile devices to check almost all sorts of content – news, magazines, blogs etc. In response to this, several news providers like The NY Times, HuffPost, BuzzFeed offer mobile apps. Medium, which is a content publishing platform,  also is a popular example. 

If you plan to include a lot of text-based content for your app, then you should put extra attention to readability. As mobile devices have significantly smaller screens- font size and spacing that might seem ideal for bigger screens like on desktops and tablets may be difficult to read on a mobile screen. So, you should make sure that the content you are providing is well-tailored for mobile devices.

3. Declutter your App

A simpler app UI delivers the best user experience. App developers often commit the mistake of incorporating multiple features into the app. Therefore build mobile apps with any proficient mobile app development company, Bangalore to make your app feature-rich, and to ensure that your mobile app design is minimal and elegant. 

Also, keep in mind that mobile screens provide less screen spaces than tablets or desktops. So, it might not be possible to display the whole content on your mobile app. 

4. Keep a shortened onboarding process

After installing any particular app, the users always want to access it as soon as possible. And you will have a hard time engaging them if you bombard them with lengthy forms that itself will consume more time to fill. Hence, you should only keep  the necessary elements.  It is better to keep the onboarding process as straightforward and user-friendly to increase user engagement thus motivating them to ensure user retention. 

5. Ensure the Design is Responsive

Many mobile phone models exist, with differences in the resolutions and screen sizes. For example, The screen of the Galaxy Note 20 is approximately 1080 x 2400,  but the size of the Samsung Galaxy S20 is nearly 1440 x 3200. Therefore, your mobile app design has to be compatible and responsive to all the major range of mobile devices. 

Similarly, your mobile app should be responsive to both iOS and Android platforms. Ensure your design to be responsive and compatible on both the platforms unless you are targeting a specific platform. 

6. Use More Visuals

The users will definitely enjoy a mobile app with pleasing visuals, elegant aesthetics  and bright color schemes. Therefore, you should try increasing engagement on your app by instilling several combinations of colors, textures, visual art etc. 

If you wish to add text, make it a small one as Mobile app screens are not suitable for large pieces of text. It is always recommended to take help from any renowned mobile app development company in bangalore to stick to light text paired with enhanced visual effects for the best experience. 

7. Eliminate Long Scroll

If you are planning to offer a lot of reading content, long scrolls will be convenient. But make sure that for other aspects your users don’t scroll the screen for extended periods. Since mobile screens are small, users would not prefer to lose sight of the information above. Therefore, keep a limited content on a screen. 

You can also divide your content into different sections and let your customers enjoy it with lateral scrolling. 

For instance, if your customers need to fill a form that’s slightly a long one, you can divide the form into a few sections, such as Contact Details, Billing Details, Preferences, etc. This way, the users will be able to fill one section and then swipe to move to the next section and again swipe to come back to the previous section.

8. Finger-Friendly Buttons for more convenience and Tap Targets

While accessing a desktop site, the user can hover very easily over the cursor on a button and by pressing the left mouse key. But when it comes to a mobile app, no such mouse cursor is available and users need to use their thumbs and/ or fingers to tap the buttons. If your buttons are very small, they will be difficult to press, thereby not making up for the desired user experience. So, keep your buttons as big and easy to tap. 

Also, you need to keep the thumb zone in mind as many users prefer their thumbs for scrolling and tapping, while holding their mobile phones with the other hand. Hence,  make sure to place the important buttons and actions at locations that are easily reachable by the thumb. 

9. Adhere to the OS-Specific Guidelines

Android and iOS,the two popular mobile operating systems, are entirely different in features like content layout, buttons, and/or way of navigation. Therefore if you try to implement Android design guidelines for iOS and vice versa, you would be risking the user experience.

So, it’s better to hire android developers Bangalore, from a renowned company like Indglobal who always stay updated with the latest OS design guidelines. Also, mostly try to keep things native. You might be able to save some time and effort if you go for a hybrid app, but you may compromise user experience by doing that. 

Stick to the UI kits available for each platform to offer unparalleled engagement and experience to app users.

10. Check for the Loading Speed

While the design may seem appealing for a particular app to the customers, complex apps always take much time to load. A research article by “Think with Google” presented that the app bounce rate increases significantly with every second of dealt in load time. 

Source: Think with Google

If your app takes approximately 1-3 seconds to load, the bounce rate can increase by 32%. The figure skyrockets to almost 123% in case the loading time is 1-10 seconds. 

So, your UI/UX design should also load fast apart from being an attractive one in order to increase the mobile app engagement.

Closing Thoughts: 

An app with unique features and functionality will definitely achieve many downloads.  But, today the goal is not just an app download but also retaining users to craft brand loyalty. It is the design and experience that will ensure that the customers keep using it. Converting users to loyal, long-term customers help increase average lifetime value and generate more revenue for your app. By following the above mobile UX/UI strategies, you can surely increase user engagement on any app and ensure that your application has a profound impact in the highly competitive app land.