A Mobile device is “mobile”

It’s moving!

Users interact with the mobile device most of the time while moving around, walking in streets, taking stars, talking with someone else, while eating, cooking, playing and even while sleeping.

That’s why it’s important to consider the distraction and the movement of the user, most of the time the are not giving it to much focus, they need to press the button and take an action without consuming a lot of energy on it.

Tips:

• Use intuitive icons.
• Deliver a forgiving app which considers the user errors
• Create error prevention strategies
• Don’t consume the user memory and don’t build on it
• Produce a predictive flows and actions
• Give feedback for the user interactions

• A Mobile device is personal

It mine, it’s private, it includes my secrets!

Because it’s a mobile and only used by one person, the users add on it all the personal information, payment methods, diaries, notes, chats, photos, notes.

The key is personalizing.

Tips:

• Secured, Safe
• Personalized content
• Saved preferences
• automated actions (i.e logins)

• Mobile is limited.

It’s small in size, it’s limited in views, it’s short in time and limited connectivity, to overcome all these constrains it’s better to follow below standards:

• Create Short user journeys
• Less taps
• Simplify the views
• As few as possible actions
• Save data
• Provide only needed content

• Mobile is not a single experience.

Many devices, different brands, sizes, platforms and experiences… that’s why the user should be able to use the app on any device and we should consider this difference.

Tips:

• Follow platform guidelines
• Don’t mimic platform standards
• Use cloud to store his data
• Design for different platforms

• Mobile offers special inputs.

The mobile devices has a lot of inputs isn’t there in desktop machines, these inputs are good to have and when used correctly it adds an enjoyable experience to the user.

• Touchscreens
• The sensitivity to touch 
• The quality of resolution 
• GPS (Global Positioning System)
• Accelerometer
• Camera
• Heart rate Monitors
• Fingerprint Sensors
• Gesture Control

• Bonus tips:
  • Design easy-to-use clear navigation (Simple, Clear, Consistent)
  • Make it easy to scan your pages (read more about the Z-Pattern )
  • Ensure that clickable elements look like clickable
  • Provide feedback on interactions , tell the user what’s happening now
  • Minimize the need for typing
  • Prioritize one primary action per screen
  • Navigation shouldn’t draw focus away from the content.
  • Communicate current location on the app
  • Strive for consistency
  • Consider finger-friendly tap-targets
  • Don’t copy UI elements between platforms.
  • Don’t replicate the web experience to apps
  • Nothing should have a dead-end!
  • Avoid using underlined links in mobile apps, it means that this is web view content.
  • encourage your visitors to wait for content to load (i.e. use skeletons)
  • Open internal link inside the app, don’t take users to a browser, They will not come back!
  • Don’t ask for permissions right at the start. (read more about permissions best practices)
  • Don’t use business or technical terminologies in the user interface. (i.e Chatbot, token…etc.)
  • avoid Auto-playing videos with sound
  • never sacrifice usability for the sake of aesthetic!