Say “No” to Bad App Design

Say “No” to bad app design because -> How well your app is designed directly impacts how well it works.

Apps that aren’t designed well, don’t work well.

That’s right, bad app design results in apps that not only look unappealing, they’re also hard to use. Poorly designed apps are frustrating, confusing and cumbersome – right?

As a result, users will complain. And your team will conclude the only thing they can, “the app doesn’t work”.

In a way, you’re right, the app doesn’t work. But not because it has a bug. It doesn’t work because the people who need to use it can’t figure the damn thing out.

Their complaints may sound like any of the following:

1. How do I…?
2. That feature is missing!
3. It takes much longer to do my job with this app!

Bad App Design Ticks People Off!

Bad app design costs you in both lost productivity, and customer/employee dissatisfaction. Not to mention the negative impact on your brand and reputation.

This is why companies must care about how well your app is designed. Take a firm stance against bad app design and ensure that the app design company you hire, does as well.

So What Does Bad App Design Look Like?

We’ve talked about two varieties of bad app design –

1. 1. apps that are not intuitive to use,
   2. and apps that are just plain ugly.

An app that is ugly is not necessarily hard to use, in fact, sometimes ugly apps are easy to use in their simplicity.

For example, aside from the unclear navigation icons at the top, the form on this drywall calculator app is quite straightforward and clear, despite being ugly.

But here’s the thing – you can have both. You can have that app that is easy to use AND looks great. That’s the goal.

FEMA’s app is both visually unappealing and an unpleasant user experience. It doesn’t even attempt to look like an app. The same goes for this income tax calculator app.

Here are a few things to know that will help you avoid bad app designs like these.

How to Avoid Bad App Design

The best way to avoid bad app design is to ask this question when interviewing an app development company:

Does the team you’re assigning to our project
include an experienced app designer?

You want them to say yes. But be warned, not all app development companies have an app designer on staff.

1. Graphic designers are not app designers – Graphic design and UI/UX design are two very different disciplines. Graphic designers are generally great at designing beautiful things such as logos, posters and advertisements. User interface (UI) designers have special training and experience designing user interfaces. Designing a user interface is a very different practice than designing graphics.
2. App developers are not app designers – Also pretty common is just tasking a developer with coming up with the design. No. Don’t do this. Developers are brilliant at bringing software to life with code, but most are not trained and experienced app designers.

I can’t stress enough how important it is that the team that builds your app shows care about the user experience and user interface design process. This includes usability and the look and feel.

At Big Fish, all of our app development projects include an experienced app designer who ensures your app is intuitive, easy to use and looks great as well.

Ready to Hire App Designers Who Know What They’re Doing?

I bet you are! If you’ve been tasked with hiring the talent for a corporate app design project, please reach out to our experienced app design team today.