Commonly made mobile UX mistakes and how to avoid them

Mistake usually made:

Assuming the users need to sign in

Now it’s quite clear that there are several benefits of having users sign in, still a lot of issues come up in this arena for your users. After all it is not really a pleasant thing when the users have to type in the same personal data many a times for each app or service. There are a number of app solutions that enable the users to temporarily skip registration so this way you can try out the app and also get a sense of value. This method is effective for Apple to adopt it into their User Experience Guidelines while cutting the funnel can again impact in a huge way.

HotelTonight, a hotel booking app, used A/B testing and it creates a variant allowing users to complete the transaction sans creating a dedicated amount, whereas earlier the users needed to sign in before a booking is completed.

At the same time this notably decreased friction by taking away a common pain point required to generate value, then incentivized users have to consider the same pain points by offering additional incentive to do so. Also remove sign-ins to enhance their bottom line.

Mistake #2. Assuming you need to bombard users with "value"

As it comes to app optimization it’s advised to include onboarding tutorials, enabling users to leave out registration. This provide users with a great sense of value for an app, ascertaining they have good knowledge of all they can do with your app and what you will get out of it.

These techniques can typically increase sign-ins and engagements while Vevo wants to find out if letting go of them helps in increasing their KPIs. It’s realized that removing tutorials is going to increase the amount of that logged in and signed up. Once the variants are tested the results were clear, whereas sans tutorials 10% more users logged in and 6% more signed up.

Vevo sign in

Vevo: Tutorial #1

Vevo: Tutorial part 2

Vevo: Tutorial part 3

According to Vevo, the tutorial was just not required as there are so many brand that most users who download the app are familiar with the core value proposition of the app and there was even no need of convincing.

It’s believed that trying to convince users of possible value through a tutorial impedes them from getting to the actual value in an app. You need to ensure that your app is not doing the same.

Mistake #3. Copying other app experiences

As we mentioned about the two above mistakes that happen from implementing generally accepted good practices without questioning if there is any scope of improvement. Speaking of online advice, then it’s certainly a good starting point as each app and product happens to be unique in their objectives, audience, value, functionality, etc. It’s advised to not implement example tests you get see online and rather sketch your ideas from customer feedback. Coming up with surveys, reading reviews and gathering qualitative data helps as you get the idea regarding what users would like to see changed. Use that data and create new test ideas specific to your app and then use A/B testing to find out their effects on your audience.

Mistake #4. Underestimating how long updates take on mobile

We often forget how much longer any change on mobile takes to bleed through to the end-user as you compare it to web. As you are on the web, information gets stored on company controlled servers so it’s easy to make changes. Lest a mistake enters into production, devs can quickly revert to a previous state, or make adjustments and deploy them instantly. On the contrary, it’s not easy to make changes on mobile. Usually updates need unwilling users to manually update the apps on their phones however that’s quite challenging and this it becomes important what you push out has been thoroughly tested and proven to improve the experience, rather than detract from it.

On mobile, it’s a painful process to fix mistakes and you also have to integrate testing as part of your development cycle is helpful in alleviating much of a risk. In case of any mistake, you can use feature flagging and instant updates to create hotfixes and quickly put down any impending disasters.

Mistake 5. Doing a redesign without user feedback and data

Google’s Material Design framework in three different apps. Nowadays material design enjoys great prominence thus it’s given to feel the requirement to redesign your app to keep it from feeling outdated. However, overhauling an app can prove to be a mistake that causes KPIs to tumble.

At the end of the day, conversions prove to be imperative instead of aesthetics as most would go for an app that converts than one that appears attractive while it fails.

This way instead of doing a large overhaul, making and testing incremental changes to bring you closer to your goals it advised. Needless to say it’s even more critical on mobile than it’s on web. It’s just not that easy to simply revert back to a previous state once an update has been pushed. Once the launch has taken place the users are struck with what you’ve got until the app stores decide upon the right time. After all you wouldn’t want deleting your app during that time do you?

In that case, doing a grand overhaul is a risky thing and will force you to start your CRO for the new design. Thus, you better get feedback from your users as to what they’d like to see. Now with that user feedback you can design tests to redesign your app and find about the effects of each change.