Business websites and apps go hand in hand, helping you and your customers secure a great relationship.
But there’s still a lot of confusion about what a well-designed app should do and feature. Taking some wrong turns when making an app can put customers off your site for good, whereas choosing the right steps can build a connection that lasts for years.
Consistency is key
The idea of building a new app can be exciting if you’ve been holding thoughts about updating a long-standing website design. While it is good practice to want to expand an app to bring older systems up to new standards, this does involve risks.
If your app is too different from your website, customers can become confused and even frustrated, which can drive them away. Instead, it’s best to aim for consistency, even if this means modifying your website to bring it up to par with your app.
For an example of this concept done well, consider the bingo apps available on services like Buzz Bingo. Whether looking at the website or app for this service, the layout of the games like live bingo and the Blue Wizard slot remains consistent, as do the graphics and features from the website. Anybody trying out the app will instantly understand where everything is and what it does, making for a much more welcoming experience.
Remember flexibility
After the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, smartphones all began to chase the slate-style standard. This form factor was considered the status quo, but today it’s not the style in town. Modern phones also must factor in flip and folding devices, and refusing to acknowledge these options can cause problems.
Folding systems like the Galaxy Fold series offer visual space that essentially doubles that available from slate-style devices. This means apps have more space to work with, but just as importantly, it changes the phone’s aspect ratio. In action, this means that apps designed only for slate-style devices won’t appear correctly on an opened folding system.
Webpages overcame this challenge with the use of HTML5, a system of code that could be easily customised to change and scale a webpage based on the screen space available. This is the same approach required when coding a standalone app, to ensure apps run in reliable and predictable ways.
At the same time, flexible viewing areas also need to maintain the general design aesthetics of your business’s website. Just like scaling to a different-sized browser window on a computer, an app needs to serve even unusual fringe resolutions and ratios when possible, to ensure no customer misses out.
App development is an ongoing progress where nothing is ever truly done. It’s a constant battle to involve the latest relevant technology while ignoring extraneous elements which overcomplicate and alienate.
Ultimately, app development is a learning process, one where mistakes can become a useful way to adapt and learn. Remember the cornerstones of consistency and flexibility, and you’ll be a in better position to minimise future issues and make something customers keep coming back to.
