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Considering the increasing consumer use of mobile devices in recent years, more and more companies have progressively created and released mobile apps. However, a ‘’set it up and forget it’’ approach doesn’t work, especially in today’s harsh market, where thousands of new apps are launched daily.
As customer expectation of superior digital experience continues to rise, entrepreneurs must continually maintain their applications to keep up with new technology trends and stay relevant.
So, how do you ensure that your product remains engaging and competitive over time? Following are the 12 tips to help you achieve such goals.
1. Collect user feedback
Have you ever encountered the ‘’what is your experience with this app?’’ or a similar pop-up when attempting to close an app? Here, the developer is merely gauging how satisfied users are with the application.
An in-app survey is a short questionnaire embedded directly in the app. It offers a direct and targeted line of communication with your clients, permitting you to gather customer feedback easily and quickly.
Collecting customer feedback about the aspects of app experience that they’re satisfied with is arguably the most effective approach to detecting UX improvements your products need. Gathering customer feedback allows you to identify their pain points better, perform specific feature enhancements, and make them feel heard.
You can obtain user feedback on diverse elements of the app experience, like onboarding processes, usability, design elements, and more.
2. Continuous market research
To quickly update the evolving UX trends, It’s critical to research the latest trends in the broad market in addition to your specific app category. This includes reviewing and examining features of top apps across industries. What new features have your rivals launched? What functionalities are they introducing or removing?
Consequently, you can quickly evaluate whether this feature is worth building and act accordingly. Not only can you incorporate capabilities that have been successfully deployed in your industry, but you can also be the first mover if you successfully modify successful app features of other industries to fit your sector’s needs.
3. Build a UAT team
Another great way to get critical feedback is to form a user acceptance testing group that incorporates thought leaders in your company and a small group of external professionals. Give these subject matter experts access to your alpha or beta versions and pay attention to suggestions.
The UAT group is helpful to ask for gap analysis and assessment once you pivot your strategy in light of user feedback before launch.
4. App optimization with behavioral analytics
Evaluating high-level trends in your user base is vital to grasp why and where your customers drop off.
Most companies have mountains of data but find it hard to extract key insights from datasets to make informed decisions. That’s when product analytics platforms like Mixpanel come into play.
With powerful built-in capabilities like group analytics, insights/funnels/retention, limitless segmentation, etc. Mixpanel allows corporations to quickly measure impactful metrics and determine when users lose interest or fail to take action. From here, you can know exactly which areas you need to improve and where to decrease the number of clicks/ touches for a better mobile app user experience.
Based on behavioral analytics, you can also deliver a highly personalized experience with data relevant to a user’s preferences, buying habits, specific behaviors and personal information.
5. Monitor and test all new releases
Consistently monitoring and testing your product is strongly advised. If a test environment isn’t accessible for inspection and verification, new vulnerabilities might be generated as bugs fixed, and new releases are made available.
6. Check App Reviews
App reviews are a great resource for discovering what works and does not with your products. You can go through reviews to understand what users are going through to make the needed changes.
7. Organise focus groups
To supplement the customers’ feedback and reviews, you can establish user focus groups to learn how users interact with the current products. Mr. Alan Barnard of Goldratt Research Lab LLC shared that live focus groups with new and experienced users across all their app platforms have taught their teams some of their most valuable lessons on how to enhance user experience
8. Integrate accessibility features into your mobile app
For custom mobile apps, accessibility has become a necessity. Tech executives must re-evaluate usability with inclusion in mind, regardless of whether their solution is intended for the workplace or everyday consumer use. Take into account choices like text resizing, voice-over services, closed captioning, and other assistive technologies.
9. Employ A/B testing
Validating the actual demands of clients via a design anthropology study is a crucial stage. Once those requirements are discerned, and the mobile application is functional, it’s vital to closely track user activities using A/B testing to ensure the product fulfills customers’ needs.
10. Add fresh design components
Your app’s design should be updated frequently to maintain a fresh user experience. If you don’t periodically upgrade your design by altering the app interface, adding new elements, etc., your mobile app will fail to keep pace with evolving standards.
11. Use an API-centric architecture
When designing and developing a mobile app, it is recommended that companies separate the backend functions from the application logic to create an API-centric architecture. This allows developers to concentrate on the user experience by simplifying the process of obtaining backend data and operations. Additionally, APIs make it possible for both external and internal parties to introduce applications.
12. Analyze app performance
Most elements of your mobile user experience are based on your application’s performance. As a rule of thumb, users who encounter performance problems are more likely to feel frustrated and churn.
An app’s performance entails its responsiveness, stability, and speed. According to studies, 59% of consumers find it annoying when an app takes longer than 2 seconds to launch. Meanwhile, 71% of app installs take place as a result of app crashes.
Components that play into mobile app performance involve loading time, performance under various conditions, and crash events during user activity spikes. Thus, it’d be best if you regularly keep an eye on your app performance and rapidly fix problems as they occur.
Final Words
Consumers are as fickle as ever, hence, it’s essential to test, measure and study what interests users routinely. Given that 22% of users only ever open an app once, creating an optimal user experience is arguably the most effective way to convince them to come back. Start enhancing your app today to stay ahead of the curve. If you need assistance to accomplish any of the above-mentioned tips or want to have an app audit, our team is here to help.
Discuss your mobile app development project with us today!