The Power of Detail in Mobile App Interface Design

The bar is high for custom mobile app developers in 2015, with over 1,000 released every day in the Apple App Store alone. Mobile app development companies have to create better products than ever before if they hope to stand out — that applies to mobile games, education startups, and even FinTech app developers.

Differentiating apps begins in the design process. (Any mobile app designer can tell you: the devil is in the details.) Seemingly minute touches like button animations and menu color choices can literally make the difference between success and failure. It’s not just small startups putting more focus on usability and design in 2016; big companies like Facebook and Twitter pour millions into UX research, constantly tweaking their products to maintain a competitive edge.

The challenge for designers is separating the important details from the fluff. The mobile app development process has plenty of shareholders already  before you add headstrong designers to the mix, and many startups fail when the hunches of a single person on the team get in the way of delivering something usable to the shareholder who matters most: the end user. Particularly for designers, putting aside hard-earned gut instinct for what works can be a challenge. (Convincing a client to do the same? Even harder.)

Mobile app development increasingly follows highly established “best practices” when it comes to design — and with good reason. Yes, it’s true that minimal design usually results in better user experience. Yes, as a general rule, soft flat colors palates draw in the user more than complex, textured interfaces.

That being said, following best practices should never be the end of the process. The mobile app development community landed on the current UI/UX trends via rigorous testing, but what actually works in practice will always vary from product to product.

Startups that land on a healthy balance between best practices and rigorous testing of UI details will find themselves with a much more realistic end product; something that users will love to return to because it just “feels right.” As design becomes more important, mobile app developers can’t afford to skip out on testing during the design process.