‘Friction points’ are a major problem in mobile apps – so how can you identify and fix them?
Historically, there has often been a tendency among some designers to imagine that if they are skilled in designing for one medium, they will be able to easily enough create effective designs for another medium.
When the “World Wide Web” was still fairly young, this phenomenon was sometimes seen among print designers, who fancied themselves as being able to rapidly shift their existing approach to the then-emerging field of website design. Unfortunately, this all too often resulted in websites that produced poor user experiences.
Today, however, it may be a lot likelier for someone who designs highly effective traditional websites, but who has never previously designed a mobile app, to presume they can adopt the same, largely unmodified approach for the latter medium. Again, you can probably imagine the outcome: mobile apps that do not provide a pleasant experience for the end user.
Ask yourself: what websites, apps, and other digital products do you use?
We’re going to invite you to pause for a moment, and to consider all the websites and digital products (the latter including the likes of mobile apps and software on your laptop) that you use over the course of a typical week or month.
For the purposes of this thought exercise, you might even go as far as writing down the top 10 that you use most frequently. The chances are that if you do, mobile apps will account for a lot of the entries on your list. It can be easy to forget just how often you look at that social media app on your phone, or check your bank account balance on that online banking app.
A mobile app is likely to be used more frequently, which makes friction a top issue
Frequency of usage is a crucial aspect to zoom in on, given the profound implications this can have for the optimal design approach. The more often you engage with a particular website, mobile app, or software package, the greater the importance of the user experience will be.
As you ponder what websites and digital products you draw upon most frequently, it might appear to you that there are certain mobile apps you constantly use. As a consequence, you will have developed deeper connections with these apps than you have with a news website that you might check only two or three times a week.
What this means is that if a “friction point” arises with the interface of a mobile app that you use several times a day, you are likely to find this much more irritating than would be the case with the aforementioned website you only look at now and again.
If the website has a navigation system that makes it hard for you to find the information you want – for example, the current local news stories – as quickly as you want it, this is frustrating. However, it can also be relatively easily forgotten, once you navigate away from the site.
In the event, though, of you encountering the same friction on the mobile app you use multiple times per day, your frustration will compound rapidly.
So, how can you resolve these ‘friction points’ in your brand’s mobile app?
To begin to tackle “friction points” in any mobile app that your brand has already developed, it will naturally be necessary to discover what those friction points are.
So, you will need to seek them out. Various methods can assist with this, such as requesting feedback directly from users of your brand’s app, as well as turning to analytics tools to gain insights into user behaviour.
Usability testing can also greatly help you pick out and understand friction points within your app, before you proceed to explore solutions and test them rigorously. After all, you will need to be sure that any changes you propose to your app are genuinely effective at lowering friction.
Constant monitoring, adaptation, and refinement will be fundamental to your efforts to design a mobile app that is well-aligned with your target users’ behaviour and needs.
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To help realise the potential of your brand online, why not enquire today to Piranha Designs’ proven team?
With our expertise in website design, ecommerce, graphic design, and custom software development services in Gibraltar, Spain, and the UK, we are ideally placed to support businesses in their growth journey.
