The majority of people consume digital media either on desktop or mobile phones. Both of these platforms have a high number of users, making mobile and other technologies gain worldwide popularity.  With the advancement in technology and the number of smartphone users increasing day by day, people want to get more things done in less time and quickly. This makes the importance of UI/UX design for your mobile application even more crucial today. People opt for mobile devices over the desktop for many reasons, the major one being convenience.  The other one being the functionality and ability of mobile devices to get things done quickly. GoodWorkLabs is one of the eminent UI/UX design studios in Bangalore that provides best-in-class service that makes your application stand out from the crowd. 

When the competition is such high, your application must be built with an appealing design that influences the customers and gets things done quickly. For that choosing, the best UI/UX design studio is an important step, as UI/UX design of mobile app plays a key role in your mobile app’s success. 

So, you are thinking, what are UI and UX? Let’s understand these terms first – 

WHAT IS UI & UX?

UI stands for the user interface. It is through UI that users interact with the mobile application. The user interface includes all the controls, buttons, blocks, and elements of the app.  The user interface’s primary goal is to provide easy and effective interaction between the user and the application. 

UX stands for user experience. UX provides the overall experience for the user. It must be clear, comfortable, and user-friendly and should work to turn your users into loyal customers.

Why UI/UX is essential in the application?

The designing part of the app must be top-notch; otherwise, no matter the functionality, your app will fail. Rather, the ideal match is to strike the right balance between the app’s functionality and UI/UX. Doing so will make the app a successful one!

The importance of UI/UX Design in Mobile apps –

• Captivates Users

When users open your app, the first thing that impacts them is the designing part. Secondly, when they start using it, the focus is on engagement. Hence, your app should have the best of both to grip your customers to it.  

• Customer Satisfaction

When your app has a good design and runs smoothly, it presents your customer with easy navigation, making them satisfied by its usage.  A pleased customer will recommend your app to others, which in turn gives you potential leads, thereby increasing the ROI on your business.

• Saves time and cost

If you get the best UI/UX design studio to work on your application, your customers will not discover any trouble or difficulty using your application. An excellent product will not require a frequent update and help you save time and money.

• Get featured in the app store

Make sure to provide users with a fantastic UI/UX. The rating and reviews of a satisfied customer will bring your mobile app to the top, and getting featured on the top list will get more users to your app.

• UI/UX design boost your brand

The best marketing strategy is to satisfy your present customers, and they will fetch you much more. When you invest in a UI/UX design development company to make your application, you are investing in your brand value. Users tend to stay with brands that provide the best value. 

A good relationship between your organization and customers will increase your business’s plausibility and create good brand value. Get your application built with the best UI/UX design company in Bangalore – GoodWorkLabs and take your brand to the next level. Contact now!

Many times we come across a new application but we end up closing it. The reasons are varied, either the app doesn’t fit your screen, or doesn’t look that appealing, or is just too complicated to navigate? Or do you remember how you felt when you opened an app – your first impression? Good, boring or amazing?

So what happens when your app doesn’t match the consumer’s expectations and they face any issue related to your application design – of course, they would choose to uninstall and look for better options. This is where an experienced UI and UX designer comes to your rescue. The design and development industry has withstood the test of time and has evolved. While many brands keep on updating their app designs depending upon the consumer behaviour, there are still few brands that are not giving the attention to the app design that it deserves. Such brands or companies will slowly fade away from consumer’s smartphones and app stores.

In this article, let us look at what is the importance of UI and UX design for mobile apps. But before that, let us understand what does UI and UX mean.

You can also read – ‘The Importance of UI and UX Design for Mobile Applications’ to get further insights.

User Interface(UI), is a way through which a user interacts with the application. User Experience(UX), is about creating a system or application which provides the best experience to the users. Consult GoodWorkLabs, the eminent UX design studio in Bangalore, to get applications with world-class designs.

Why does your app need an efficient UI and UX design? 

Living in a fast-paced world, the attention span of customers/users is limited to just a few seconds. Therefore it is very important to catch their attention in a short time span so that they hook to your application for a long period of time. A user will spend more time on your application, and if both of you are on the same page he/she may become a loyal user. So, what is it that can grab a user’s attention in no time? Well, it is the UI and UX of the application that helps them to be hooked to an app. A favourable and relevant UI and UX design will help you in keeping your users engaged.

So apart from captivating users, here is what UI and UX do:

Enhances customer satisfaction

A happy user will surely recommend your app to their peers, friends and other close circles. An impressive app with easy to navigate interface, compelling design and insightful content will keep your users satisfied with the services of your application. This will increases your user database, thereby helping you increase downloads of your application.

Understanding user behaviour 

UI and UX design can help you customise your application for different audience segments, thereby keeping all your audiences sets engaged and happy. As the UI and UX of an app are designed by keeping audiences or users in the core, hence it automatically attracts the audience it is built for. UI & UX also gauge the user journey through your app so that helps you analyse the flaws in your application’s UI and UX design and you can take corrective measures to bridge the gaps.

Builds your brand 

An application that impresses the users will automatically become popular among users. UI and UX design play a major role in keeping your audiences engaged, happy, and loyal. People like engaging with applications that provide value and proves useful. It also adds more credibility to your business, which increases your business and brand value.

Consult GoodWorkLabs, the renowned UX design studio in Bangalore

The ideal way to ace your UI and UX design is to understand your audience needs. If you are looking to have a compelling UI and UX design then reach out to us at contact@goodworklabs.com or call +91- 9863077000 and our creative UI and UX design team will build an efficient and effective UI and UX design for your application.

Animations for UX Design

Do you think good visuals and an appealing user interface is enough to keep people hooked to your app?

Think again!

With smartphones establishing their existence in the pocket of almost every individual, the number of mobile applications has been steadily increasing. Such a situation has made it very difficult for mobile apps to stand out with something unique on offer.

This is where animations have upped the game for many applications. Without enough animations, even the best interfaces will only lead to confusion among users and instil a feeling where they are choosing things directly without any context. Nicely done animations prove crucial to enhance the user experience of your design and deliver the users a satisfying, smooth and delightful overall experience.

Animations can use and combine the sound and haptic features in mobile applications, enabling the general experience to be much more close to reality with a considerable reduction in the cognitive load as well. The pressure is less because animations make it easier to recognize every connection and context pretty quickly when using an app.

Principles of Creating Animated Interfaces

Here are some of the principles which are unavoidable when you create animated interfaces. Regardless of the tools, techniques, and framework you use, these principles will come in handy.

1) Attention and Focus:
The most significant objective of any animation in your app is to give a context and also direct the focus of a user to critical elements for a more fluid experience. The screens which seem without any connection can be seamlessly merged to assist the user in navigating while using your website or app.

To get the maximum impact from the animations on your app, you need to learn the art of restraint. Admittedly, it is a tempting prospect to exhibit a lot of animation on every single screen on your app. If you get carried away then the core motive of including animation gets lost in the process.

2) Order and Hierarchy with sequences:
If you are pondering to animate every element in your user interface, your thought process may incline in the wrong direction. While the right set of animation will focus the attention of a user inevitably, too much of it on a single page will also divert the attention.

However, if you still want to animate multiple elements on a single screen, you should always use a small delay in between them. Ensure that the ease and duration of animations are consistent. The entire process of this timing and delay in animation is known as the choreography principle of Material Motion.

3) The right kind of speed:
The speed of the animation in an app is generally controlled by modifying the duration of the animation. It is the duration of animations which either makes or breaks a great user experience.

Follow the general rule and try to incorporate animations which have a duration of 0.3-1 second. The animations lesser than 0.3 seconds feel as if they don’t even exist because you can easily miss the transition.

Also if a user can notice them, such speed can easily confuse the app user. Even animations that are longer than 1 second do not have too many fans. Animations can feel very slow and prove as a barrier to smooth interaction between the users and the interface.

The most significant advantage of using snappy and quick animations is that your app feels faster and more responsive. If the animations lag a lot, your app will feel slow and broken, which is going to make the overall experience of using the app an unpleasant one.

The speed we are talking about is not just limited to the duration of the animation but also applies to the lag which happens between the first swipe gesture and animation which follows next.

Understand the Physics involved:

Nothing in this world starts or stops instantly. It always takes a considerable amount of time for things to speed up or slow down. Forces like friction, remember?

An ideal animation is natural in its behavior, which also helps to ease the cognitive load on a user in understanding and using the application. Other than the duration of animations, you should also familiarize yourself with the different kinds of easing that is used in the design:

1) Linear:

This is the animation which is brought to use without any easing. It is also the most unnatural, so limit its use to only when very necessary.

2) Ease-in:

Ease-in is an accelerated easing. The animation here begins gradually and ends quickly.

3) Ease-out:

Now it is the opposite of easing in. It is decelerated easing. The animation starts very quickly and slows down a bit at the end. This is the best option as the quick start lends a sense of responsiveness in the app and provides a natural slowness in the end.

4) Spring:

Spring is an animation which ends on a bouncing note. It is used in a large number of modern mobile applications due to its responsiveness and vibrancy. Once you close on the right kind of animations which are needed in your app, you will be able to extend the natural world into the devices of people, which is always better than a strange and abstract experience.

Conclusion:

Based on the above discussion, you would have clearly understood how animations are a crucial part to create a great user experience without too much last-minute thinking.

Keep animation and the interaction in your mind right from the beginning so that the focus on overall experience remains constant during the entire process of product designing.

The principles discussed are timeless. If you are getting familiar with animations or are fully aware of them as well, these are some points which you need to always keep in your mind while creating new designs and applications.

Elevating user experience to new levels should always be your priority as a designer.

Speaking of a designer, are you looking for one? At GoodWorks Design, our creative team is acing the UX with animations. If you have a design idea and need help with execution, talk to us!.

Great design, best user experience, and overwhelming sales

2020 is the year of digital transformation. Many companies and businesses in the past few months have embraced technology and made the best use of it to survive and sustain. One such overwhelming trend is the boom of e-commerce sector more than ever. To stay safe, people today want to least interact with others, avoid going to crowded supermarkets, and are looking to get everything at their door-step. Therefore, it would not be unfair to say that this is the era of e-commerce, and this sector can take the maximum advantage of the times.

With most services and products being purchased online through an e-commerce mobile application, it is important for all the emerging and existing e-commerce players to focus more on the user experience(UX) and user interface(UI). E-commerce mobile applications with great UX and UI design leave a remarkable impression on users and increase business.

With multiple categories and offerings, shopping online may get confusing and frustrating for users at times. Therefore, the mobile application should be designed such that visitors can navigate easily and comfortably on their own. The aim of the e-commerce player should be to provide a seamless experience by having a user-friendly, fast, and well-organised interface. It is the best practice to keep your users happy and engaged.

Here are a few crucial business objectives that are a direct result of your e-commerce app’s UX UI design:

Leveraging Brand Loyalty 

People generally come to your e-commerce application in search of a product, and if you help them buy the desired product easily and quickly, there are cent percent chances of them visiting your application again. Also, according to industry standards, e-commerce players make 60-70% of the revenue by selling products repeatedly to their existing customers. Therefore, the e-commerce application should offer consistent value to your users and motivate them to keep coming back for more. It is essential to know that you must change the design of your application only when necessary, frequently changing the app design will confuse your existing customers and leave them frustrated.

Branding, Promotion, and Brand re-call

E-commerce mobile applications are developed with a vision to effectively promote new products, services, and offers to customers. To do this, it is essential that the application has a conversational UX UI design so that the promotions can be executed easily. The main aim of having a standard UX UI is to grab customer’s attention and keep them hooked forever. With the standardised design, you create a brand-recall factor and your customers would know your application thoroughly soon after initial usage.

Increasing ROI

Businesses which have a clear idea about their customers’ needs and how they help them achieve their goals are the ones that succeed in this highly competitive world. Having the best UX UI design is the foundation of your e-commerce business – your aim should be to help customers find and buy their desired products quickly and easily. If this is done right, you are sure to achieve your business goals successfully.

With a humongous competition in the industry, it is very important to value each and every customer. Customers look at the application and make their decision within 10-15 seconds, and least to say – if your app’s UX UI is not well designed, they may not stay any longer. It is the user interface and experience that makes sure your customer is happy to make a purchase.

GoodWorkLabs, a leader in e-commerce UX UI design space 

GoodWorkLabs is one of the leading UX UI design development company in India, the USA, and Europe. We have a proven experience of designing UX UI for many of the world’s leading e-commerce and retail brands like – CommonFloor.com, Myntra, ST Dupont, etc. Should you be looking for a UX UI design partner, then connect with us at +91- 9863077000 or contact@goodworklabs.com for a free 1-hour consultation of how we can help you.

There are quite a lot of thoughts and emotions that we possess as human beings which are an integral part of all our creative decisions. This is why having a close observation of our feelings can help us to understand some interesting choices which we tend to make in our creative work fields. Over the last few years has been the selection of fonts in UI/UX Design is becoming more critical With the creative world constantly changing and adapting to those changes, there has also been a regular flow in learning about the methods to understand and execute typography in different kinds of environments.

UI and UX are two terms that include a lot of things, which is easy to observe because their definitions tend to vary according to the people you talk to. In the simplest terms, UI embodies the whole layout of the website or app, while UX sums up the feelings and emotions of a user when interacting with the different components of the design.

The link between UI and UX is pretty direct, with the UI exerting a lot of influence on UX and the same holds vice- versa.
People also have become more aware of the design, typography, and ways of how the world around them looks. When you become involved with a digital marketing agency for your requirements, it becomes essential that you prepare at your end for discussing fonts at the time of creative processes.

Quite a large number of people are aware of color psychology, and how some particular shades influence the behavior and the thought process of people. What is not known to many is that fonts also have an enormous impact on our overall psychology.

Associating with different methods of typography can help initiate powerful emotions and ideas. In the context of companies, it translates to selecting the right kind of fonts for a logo design which can help you fill the void in your entire brand personality.

Fonts are pretty useful tools for brand recognition. From getting a logo designed that has a sober and severe typeface or taking up something more edgy and vibrant, it becomes easier to define a ‘formal’ brand.

Selecting the right kind of font can have a significant impact on the overall feel of your website or app. The correct font, letter, size, color and the lack of unwanted distractions make it easy for the user to read and go through the content available on your website or app.
If you can understand that every font has a unique set of characteristics, you can finalize the best collection of fonts which act as the best representative of your business.

The choice of font you wish to include will depend a lot upon the overall emotions that you want to convey to your target audience, and this involves getting a little into the psychology behind font selection.

THE TYPOGRAPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Humans have an automatic reaction to the style in which a particular kind of text gets written. For instance, if you want to convey that you have a business that is pretty well-established and imbibed in tradition, you are more likely to go for a font style which reflects the idea of heritage.

In another case, if you are looking to make people perceive your business as a welcoming and stable venture, you can go to a less formal kind of typeface.

Here are a few types of typography that are known around in the design industry-

THE SERIF FONT PSYCHOLOGY

This is the most generic kind of font option. Serif fonts help convey the feelings of heritage and class, making them a great opportunity when you want to create for a company that gives out a vibe of being well-established.

They have a very artistic nature, and this is why Serif fonts bring with them the emotions of respectability and trust, making them the perfect choice for brands who want to have identities that move around grandeur and authority.

The serif fonts are best informal situations, and work best with the companies who are looking to create solid brand awareness among the target market, and portray a genuine nature.

The fonts are suited for finance companies, editorials, academics, and broadsheets.

Times New Roman, Garamond, and Georgia are popular choices in serif fonts.

SLAB SERIF FONT PSYCHOLOGY

The Slab Serif typefaces are often regarded as a subset of serif fonts as they are pretty similar in their appearance but have pronounced slab sections present in them. These typefaces are more often than not associated with solidity, confidence and a bold feeling of attitude.
Slab Serif fonts are perfect for the companies that are looking to make a significant impact in the market with either a very unique product or idea. Technology and automobile companies make free use of these fonts as they want to fill in their customers with a feeling of trust and confidence and not compromise on the new creativity part of it.
Their favored options include Rockwell, Courier, and Museo fonts.

SANS SERIF FONT PSYCHOLOGY

Simply put, the Sans Serif fonts are modern, clean and pretty engaging. These fonts are utilized by companies who believe in demonstrating a simple, straightforward, and no-nonsense attitude.
When things come down to logo design and typography, the sans serif options bring about a sense of sensibility and honesty. There is no decorative element that could distract the eye or divert the objective of delivering a message through fonts.
This simple yet practical nature of sans serif fonts attracts such brands to them who put clarity as to their priority when they get their company logo designed.
Some of the best sans serif font options are Century Gothic, Arial, and Helvetica.

SCRIPT FONT PSYCHOLOGY

The Script fonts are way fancier than their serif counterparts. The fonts promote ideas of elegance, femininity, and creativity, which is because of their handwritten nature. If you are someone who wished to make their company look more personal to get that customer loyalty, then the script typefaces can serve your purpose without a doubt.
The script fonts are the ones that are likely to encourage more creative and emotional ideas. However, script fonts demand a lot of caution. They may look artistic and fancy, but specific contexts also make deciphering them a challenging task.
Lobster and Lucida Script are two options that are great for use.

If you wish that your brand name has a separate and explicit entity apart from the logo, it is essential to understand that the way a word appears has the same amount of utility as the word itself. Your name plays a part in generating brand awareness, but if the shape and style of your font cannot boost a customer’s curiosity, then you may be losing the kind of brand recognition you are looking for.
Choose your font type wisely, and you will see a significant impact of your brand on customers, undoubtedly.

At one of our wings- GoodWorks Design Studio, we think light years ahead and transform your brand for the future with design and innovation. We don’t believe in perfect designs. We believe in evolving with design. For any design requirements for Web/Mobile Design OR UI/UX Design, reach out to us at contact@goodworklabs.com

This blog also got featured on NASSCOM Design4India’s blog section.

Hamburger Menu is an integral part of the entire UI/UX design process.

The hamburger menu is used as a navigation element on websites, apps, and programs.

The name ‘hamburger menu’ comes from its design: the design consists of a combination of three horizontal lines that denotes a hamburger. Likewise in real-world characteristics, the hamburger menu is known as a space-saving mechanism. However, the icon is not something that attracts a lot of controversies. For most of the designers, it works as a toolkit.

Now, let’s get into the hamburger menu and try to understand its functionality.

To start with, let’s discuss the subject itself:

WHAT IS A HAMBURGER MENU?

The hamburger can be referred to a menu or an icon, that is typically a type of button used in the website or application that opens as a form of side menu or navigation drawer. It is an integral part of the entire UI/UX design process.

The menu was primarily designed in 1981 by Norm Cox, an interaction designer for the Xerox Star personal workstation. The primary function of this menu is to make communication in terms of navigation to the users as easy as possible. As this button or icon provides a number of items.

Even though the hamburger menu is used for the purpose of making the navigation experience easy, the whole purpose of introducing the hamburger menu was quite different.

During an interview Cox said; he designed the menu as a container for holding the options for contextual menu choice. As a matter of fact, the menu is quite similar to the context menu that is quite common today while clicking on an object by the use of the right mouse button.

After the inception of the hamburger menu in Xerox Star, the icon stayed quite silent. But, the moment when the UX designers had to find out a way to accommodate a number of buttons onto a small phone screen, the call for the hamburger menu started to initiate all around the world. Ever since then, the hamburger menu has become an essential part of every website or application to drop in the navigation button.

Now after the transition period, most designers don’t prefer to use the icon. In fact, by stretching the subject, do people really like to go through the hamburger menu? On the contrary, even if they do prefer it, shouldn’t the items reflect in the Hamburger menu all the time as those are so important to the app?

At Worldwide Developers Conference talk, the concept of introducing navigation system into the UI/UX design came up as – they should tell users where they are and also direct users to where else they can possibly go. Certainly, the hamburger menu disappoints users with respect to both these areas. As the menu is not even located on the screen, it’s hard to notice. Moreover, this is just a button to show you the drop-down menu.

Considering all the above aspects, do we really need to get rid of these three lined icons? Or is it time that we stop differentiating and start to love the three lined hamburger menu?

To be precise, here are some basic pros and cons of the hamburger menu. to help you understand it better and make your move wisely.

3 ESSENTIAL BENEFITS OF HAMBURGER MENU IN DESIGN

Let’s talk about the most notable benefits of the hamburger menu:

#1 Recognizable

One of the notable things about the hamburger menu is that it’s universal. Which means you can find it everywhere, starting from applications to websites to video games. In short, a hamburger menu is present throughout the entire design process.

The hamburger menu is an icon that has spent a great deal of time in evolving itself as a button for the convenience of users, where they can access the navigation drawer. Hence, users can easily rely on the hamburger menu. Similar to the trash symbol that denotes the deletion of items, or even the home icon that directs users to the main menu.

In fact, it doesn’t make any literal sense to remove or hate an element that primarily matches a user’s requirements. The icon holds its own status and almost all users know the usage of such an icon. Therefore replacing the same with the new symbol will bring back the struggle to learn again for the developers.

#2 Neat and Clean

Imagine a web page filled with tons of icons and navigation options – there’s nothing worse than that. Hence, for mobile applications and websites, the hamburger menu can bring a remarkable visual experience. Moreover, you don’t want your users to get confused while choosing items from the hamburger menu. As too many items make the selection process quite difficult for all of them. Thus, to add value to the visual experience of the interface, with the clean and precise look, then the hamburger menu is the ultimate option for you.

#3 Alternate Access

The hamburger menu acts as an ideal place to load all your navigation options, without distracting your users from your service goal. Like many applications, Uber also uses this icon for the same purpose. The service objective of this application is to let you order a car, hence, the main interface is completely dedicated towards this purpose.

The icon will grant you access to other fields such as trip history, payment options, receipts and so on. These are not as important as the primary goal, therefore, there’s no need to place them on the main interface. Thus, it makes the perfect option to design a clean and smart UI (user interface).

3 DISADVANTAGES OF HAMBURGER MENU

At this point, allow us to introduce the three basic disadvantages of these three lined icon and find out why it has its fair share of haters among designers:

#1 Devalued the Options

The most disappointing thing about the hamburger menu is that it decreases the value of the item you put on that menu. For instance, imagine the application or the website as a performing platform, and the hamburger menu is a sort of small and unimportant stage. Therefore, you don’t want to put valuable inputs on that stage. Instead, you prefer to put them on the bigger stage. In this case, it’s the home page or main interface.

Thus, whenever you’re putting any design or application on the hamburger menu, it simply means that those items are not as important as the primary menu or main interface. Hence, it makes them less likely to go on that section.

#2 Less Engagement Activity

Certainly, the hamburger menu attracts a lower click rate, which can be attributed to a number of reasons. As phones are getting bigger, it becomes quite difficult to access the top left or right corner of the website or app. And if the navigation option is not in the visual parameter, then users are less likely to engage with the website.

These are the primary facts, however, not the only facts. Due to these reasons, users lose interest in the content or website.

#3 Not Efficient Enough

A knowledgeable designer knows that compelling users to go through extra steps to accomplish the end goal is never going to work. And the hamburger menu does exactly the same thing.

For instance, suppose you’re looking for a registration process. In that case, you don’t want the main button up on the icon bar. Rather you want them to be present on the main screen that will make your process convenient. However, the hamburger menu makes the process quite complicated for the users in most of the instances.

Now let’s discuss 4 examples of the hamburger menu:

4 EXAMPLES OF USING HAMBURGER MENU

Here are the best 4 illustrations of the hamburger menu in action. Irrespective of the application, desktop website and mobile websites as well, you will find all of them included in these examples.

1. Frame.io

The main interface of the application is dedicated to one particular goal – to collecting leads. Also, do check out the hamburger menu on the top right-hand corner of the application.

2. Google Drive

Google has designed its drive to provide users with what is important to them – documents. They also used the hamburger menu to accommodate the less important components of the drive, such as settings, helps, etc. The navigation button is set to the icon that helps users focus on the primary work in the first place.

3. Codrops

This is a design blog that offers tutorial and demos on different site designs, absolutely free. Note the hamburger menu on the top right corner of the site that turns into X.

4. Portuguese Chimneys

A beautifully implemented hamburger menu for a website that is totally dedicated to the nature and architecture of Portuguese Chimneys. At the top, left corner of the window will direct you to the other required tasks of their website.

These are some examples and real-life usages of the hamburger menu to make the hamburger menu interface clean and user-friendly. Now it’s your turn to make use of the hamburger menu as effectively as you can, and enhance the overall user experience through a great UI!

Our informative blog posted above also got featured on Nasscom Design website.