Steps to Design a Mobile App

Whether you're thinking of creating your own app for Android or iPhone, the process begins with a solid understanding of your brand and carries on through carefully planned user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. This article outlines the essential design steps to make your mobile app a reality, including brand guidelines, user flow diagrams, wireframes, prototypes, and deliverables.

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Brand Design

Before conceptualising a mobile app, a designer must understand how your brand benefits customers. With some preliminary research, they view your brand from your audience's perspective and express it through graphic design, translating it into visual elements like logos, colours and images.

They then create brand guidelines to guide all design content, from your mobile app to a website, social media posts and advertising, ensuring a consistent and recognisable brand presence across all platforms.

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Stylescape

A Stylescape is an inspirational board with images, text, and colours reflecting the brand's identity. This optional deliverable helps align the designer's and your vision, making communication clearer and saving time in the design process by providing a visual reference for the brand's aesthetic direction.

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Brand Guidelines

The Brand Guidelines document the brand's visual identity and usage guidelines. They cover essential elements like the logo, typography, and colour scheme and may include mockups for printed materials or advertising. These guidelines ensure consistency and proper use of the brand's visual elements, reinforcing brand recognition and trust among your audience.

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Mobile App UX Design

Designing a great user experience for your mobile app starts with thorough planning and initial sketches. This groundwork lays the foundation for an intuitive and engaging app interface.

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User Flow Diagram

A user flow diagram helps strategise the necessary screens and identify when users need action through buttons and other clicking components. It visually maps out the user journey, ensuring a logical and intuitive progression through the app and highlighting potential pain points and opportunities for enhancement.

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Wireframe

A wireframe is a visual blueprint of your app, showing where different elements like buttons and images should be placed. It focuses on creating a clean and easy-to-use interface and provides a clear structure for the final design.

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Mobile App UI Design

UI design is the exciting phase where the designer transforms the wireframe by infusing it with your brand's personality. It involves applying colours, typography, and other visual elements according to the brand guidelines, resulting in a beautiful and engaging mobile app that truly resonates with your audience.

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Prototype

A prototype is a working model of the design screens used to test the app's functionality and flow before finalising the design. This hands-on experience helps ensure the user journey is clear and intuitive, and it's a great way to identify and address any potential issues early on.

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Design System

A design system is a collection of elements like fonts and icons that can be reused across your app. Although optional, it is a highly valuable asset because it ensures a consistent look and feel across the entire product and saves time when creating new designs.

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Mobile App Deliverables

To ensure a smooth development phase, the entire mobile app design is provided via a link for developers to access information on fonts, icons, images, dimensions, colours, and all content created by the designer.