Things to keep in mind before doing an app redesign

Mobile app UI is changing constantly to meet the requirement of users. Lot of app design trends come and go – as a result of which UI style of today may become tomorrow’s faux step. There was a time when UI designs were heavily influenced by skeuomorphism. Today, designers are looking to introduce new ways to design mobile app UI. The UI designers should be updated with the latest design trends as well as know how the user expectations are changing with time.

 

Many brands are investing in redesigning their mobile apps, as their users begin to embrace a new wave of design and cultural aesthetics. Companies have to adapt to new technologies, features and functionalities to fulfill the ever changing requirement of users. Your mobile app won’t attract users for long time, if it is not maintained well.

 

The user experience you develop today may not be relevant after a few years. If you want to offer stellar experience, you should consider redesigning the mobile app. However, it is not an easy task to redesign the mobile app. There are a number of factors to consider while redesigning the mobile app.

In this post, I will help you know the things to consider before redesigning a mobile app. These factors will help you redesign your mobile app successful.

 

1. Purpose of redesigning the mobile app

Mobile app redesigning takes a lot of work and hence, it should not be done for trivial reasons. Remember that app redesign should be required not only to change the look of UI, but has a lot to do with the user experience. The first thing to consider before redesigning the mobile app is to know the purpose.

Ask yourself – why I want to redesign the mobile app? You can identify the goal by knowing what you want to accomplish by redesigning the app. If you want to enhance the overall user experience or optimize the conversion funnel, you should consider redesigning the mobile app.

Uber started redesigning their app with the question – why should they redesign their app? Though their app is full of features and created superb experience for users — people were selecting wrong products. The reason could be complex features that were causing confusion. Uber was able to create a great user experience by redesigning the app. The question – “why the app should be redesigned?” had put an end to all the confusions users had before.

 

2. Know about user expectations

You need to keep the user expectations in mind before redesigning the app. The process of redesigning may leave two different impacts on the users. First, it may disappoint the existing users — as they are used to the old design. Secondly, it may appeal the existing users and increase the user engagement. When this kind of things happens, it is typically that the redesigning team has overlooked the user expectations.

The success of app redesign depends on the key efforts you put during the research and data gathering process. You should be considering why you are redesigning the app? What are the recent trends in app design that made you take this step? Are the features of your app no longer valuable compared to recent trends? Before you leap into app redesign, you should be able to answer the above questions.

 

 

You should spend time testing the app to understand where your app sits in comparison. Customer reviews in app store can offer clean perspective of what users think about your app and what they want. While most of the apps use push notifications, negative reviews can offer great insight. If you have a look at the reviews of some of the popular mobile apps, you will see that they also get bad reviews. The best team of designers will focus on such reviews and see if the complaint remains to be a trend among users.

The best way to interpret the data is to gauge some conclusions based on the data and compare it with qualitative insight. You can conduct interviews to gather qualitative insight from users about their key objectives when using the app. You can ask questions like – What are your favorite features? What is the best thing about the app? What are the drawbacks of the app? What you want to change in this app? And so on.

If you are not sure about how people are using your app, you can use data from interviews & analytics to have an unbiased look. Use the data to know what features really matter the user and what features haven’t been touched by the user. However, you need to act smart when interpreting the data.

 

3. Which features are more important and why?

You should consider which features are important in the existing app and why they are important? You might find all the apps beneficial and they make it work. It is must prioritize the features based on organizational objectives and user research. In reality – some features are important than others and there is no sense in giving importance to other features.

 

 

If you want to redesign the app, create a chart with elements like – how many users will use the feature and how long they will use the feature. This will give you a sense of where the value is.

Use this chart to understand which existing features are important. Prioritize those features, as they actually matter a lot to the users. Mobile app redesign is mean to deliver lasting impact on the brand. As brands and logos develop deep connection with people, and it is not advisable to change them for the sake of just refreshing it. But, don’t be afraid to come out of the comfort zone and bring all the efforts to table when it’s time to review.

 

4. Monitor user response upon launch

Now, you have redesigned the app after lot of research, design, development, iteration — the time has come to finally launch it. Before you rollout the updated version of the app — share the story behind redesign. If you want your app to attract new/existing users — you should take all the necessary steps from PR to online marketing.

 

The feedback and usage data will increase as time goes on. As you used the feedback to redesign the app earlier — you should review the new data on a regular basis in the same way to make sure that you’re achieving your goals. Look back at the goal you have set to find out if the redesign was successful. Using the feedback as starting point will not only help you gauge whether the redesign was success, but will help you unlock opportunities to improve the app.

 

Wrapping up!

Mobile app redesign seems to be overwhelming at times. However, you can make the process much easier by considering the above things before redesigning the app. You can enhance the user experience and achieve your goals by conducting mobile app redesign. If you are interested in redesigning your mobile app, our team is ready to chat with you.

 

At Promatics, we have helped many small and large companies improve their mobile apps to achieve their business goals. Do not restrict your mobile app designs, as you can show much more with interactive mobile app prototype.