According to Statista, there is a steady growth in online sales, which is why more and more people prefer to buy online. Retail is committed to providing the best deals to its customers to be number one in the market. Today, e-commerce mobile applications are one of the best solutions to easily connect with buyers and increase sales.
The benefit of e-commerce websites and applications depends more on design decisions than on many other products. The successful design of the mobile e-commerce application increases the chances of delighting users due to the smart user experience and beautiful visual performance. When designed correctly, consumers can shop with ease no matter where they are. A time-saving and labor-saving e-commerce app will absolutely become many people’s favorite tool.
So if you are looking to create a mobile app design for eCommerce, you have to ask yourself where to start and how to get it right.
First of all, you should be aware that there are two basic mobile platforms: iOS and Android. When designing a mobile e-commerce application from scratch, you need to choose which platform to start with. The choice depends on several factors, including a budget, time, and target audience.
Design practices for iOS and Android applications are different. There are strict guidelines that designers must follow. Also, the design direction often depends on the chosen platform.
Before you start coding, it’s a good idea to carefully prototype the UX design for your eCommerce application. Here are some things to remember.
Make onboarding as simple as possible
Mobile app onboarding is important as it can meet or break user expectations. So, take good care of the onboarding so that users get excited and not scared. Keep the layout simple and uncluttered, without the need for too many built-in displays.
Stradivarius – a women’s clothing brand from Barcelona did quite well. You will first see a list of countries that have an online store and then a list of those that do not. Once you have selected your country, you will have the option to choose your language or English. Then you will be taken on a 5-screen tour that describes the mobile app and some of its amazing features in short texts and with very beautiful lifestyle images in the background. Note that you can skip the tour at any time just by tapping the little cross on the right side of the screen.
Allow zooming images
Mobile device users often try to zoom in on product images by double-tapping and pinching. With this in mind, allow the images to be zoomed in. The most important thing is to tell your buyers that you support zoom gestures. For example, Amazon lets you zoom in, but you have no idea until you touch the image and then collapse it. While the user may get the general idea of a product from a larger image, they may want to examine it in more detail. So be sure to give them this opportunity.
Do not use auto-correct during checkout
Optimizing the keyboard based on user needs is a good idea. You can go beyond the suggestion above by turning off the “AutoCorrect” that appears on the touch keyboard. Do you know why? Because it often works poorly for abbreviations, email addresses, street names, and the like. And users have to pause the checkout process just to repeat the correct words. This takes time and can be stressful. So, pay attention to it too.
Avoid signups and checkouts that take too long
There is no user in the world who likes long logins and payments. Make the process easy, engaging, and most importantly, short. Mobile app users don’t have the patience or courage to endure lengthy processes. Would you like to simplify the process? Allow yourself to join through your favorite social networks. Nowadays apps allow you to log in via Gmail or Facebook, for example.
Design for multiple holds
If you want users to be able to shop anytime, anywhere, keep in mind that people like to hold their smartphones differently. This implies that when designing an application, designers must place the design components in comfortable areas.
Users have three options for holding a smartphone. The first uses two hands: one holds a device and the index finger of the other navigates. The second is a one-handed grip when a user is interacting with an application with their thumb. And the third is a mix of the previous two: users hold a device with two hands and interact with both thumbs. Ecommerce application users are more interested in using the first and second grips more frequently. Because of this, many applications have the important navigation component below.
Plan a sales funnel
In the early stages of creating a UX design, you need to plan for a sales funnel. It is a special way of creating user interactions that take people to the endpoint of an application – a purchase.
There are several steps to creating an effective sales funnel:
- Get knowledge about the product.
- Provide more information about the product, including advantages and disadvantages.
- Compare a product with other items.
- Decision support through calls to action or special offers.
- The final step is to buy the product you want.
With all stages in mind, designers can guide users with various design solutions and users won’t even know it.
Make fast checkout
Modern users are extremely impatient. You don’t want to wait. If your app is slow, chances are they will go out and pick a faster one.
Checkout is an important interactive process in e-commerce applications, so you need to make sure it can be done in no time. It may be a good idea to ask users to enter their personal information, including credit card information, when registering. That way users only have to enter them once and all forms are automatically filled out during checkout.
Keep the interface clean
When looking to sell a product, you may have a strong desire to tell more about it and show more photos. However, this approach will not help you sell the product. You can only scroll users.
Too many UI components look cluttered on a small cell phone screen. Also, users cannot distinguish the key elements like a “Buy” CTA from the other elements. Because of this, you should minimize the number of items per screen so that only the essentials remain. It is also important to work with the copy that features an item. Titles and descriptions should be short but compelling for users to want to buy a product.
Think through the visual hierarchy
Visual grading is a design strategy for arranging the user interface content. Designers adjust user interface components according to their importance and create a hierarchy in the interfaces. The visual grading can be strategized by size, color, style, and other visible differences.
By implementing a visual hierarchy in the design of e-commerce applications, it is easy to highlight the key elements that affect the conversion rate and sales. For example, you can accentuate an article’s photo and a call-to-action button to make them slightly larger than other UI components on the screen.
It is also important to structure textual content, such as an item name and description, so that buyers can easily scan it. A content copy can also be divided into multiple levels, including primary, secondary, and tertiary. However, when it comes to mobile applications, it is recommended to include only two layers due to the small screens.
And finally, use in-app analytics
In addition to creating a pleasant user experience, the main goal of an eCommerce application operator is to generate revenue. So, you need an application analytics tool to help you find out more about your users.