Best Practices for Building Responsive and User-Friendly Android Apps

Every interaction in the mobile app development landscape is crucial as it unveils user engagement and satisfaction scores. Every business must develop a responsive, innovative and user-friendly application that grabs the user’s eyeballs.

There are 2.43 million apps on the Google Play store. This number showcases the many app ideas that exist and the millions that are yet to come.

However, app retention rates are meager, for example, over 90% of users give up on an application before it reaches the 30-day mark.

What we know is when someone clicks on the uninstall button of your app, your hard work goes in vain. Therefore, aim to reduce uninstalls and achieve high engagement rates when creating an App from scratch. Consider responsive and usable design best practices, as well as use skilled and experienced Android programmers.

This article will explore the design best practices for user-friendly Android applications.

Best Practices to Build Responsive Designs

At the core of an interactive design are best practices that are defined for the end users. These practices will ensure smooth and intuitive movements that enhance experiences.

#1 Responsive Designs

Android is a fragmented, open-source operating system with multiple security needs and diverse requirements. Creating designs that fit the multitudes of devices and their sizes is tedious.

However, you cannot overlook consistency and design uniformity while creating the Android app screens and layouts. Use layout managers and flexible XML layouts to ensure seamlessness in the interface design.

These features would automatically adjust the app screens to the device screen sizes.

Constraint Layout and Flexible XML Layouts

Constraint Layout is a layout manager in Android Studio that allows you to leverage relative positioning and efficient space utilization for responsive designs.

Use the resource folders to meet the diverse screen densities. These include ldpi, mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi and xxhdpi. When you incorporate screen densities, your app is automatically optimized for diverse devices and consistent viewing.

Additionally, it’s recommended to use scalable vectors for the best image quality across screens.

#2 Optimize Application Performance

Optimizing the Android application for performance is crucial to increasing user engagement and reducing abandonments. If people can access the application, move around without friction and enjoy the app, they will stay longer.

Lazy Loading and AsyncTask

Plus implement lazy loading on the website for images as this reduces the effort on the application to initiate the loading.

Use background threads or AsyncTask to reduce the time taken to perform tedious and time-consuming operations, and it will ensure quick responses and faster query generation.

Android Profiler

Leverage Android Profiler to determine and address performance bottlenecks. It can also help manage the development lifecycle and consider fragmentation for optimized memory utilization.

#3 Design Effective Navigation

Navigation is an integral part of your application design. You must seek a user-friendly and intuitive navigation layout that provides fluid movement.

Navigation Component

The tips for achieving design-effective navigation include adhering to material design principles while planning the navigation for the app to help deliver consistency and also using the Navigation Component from the Jetpack library to implement a unified system.

The navigation component is a Jetpack component that creates coherent user movement. You should also implement bottom navigation bars for easy access to various app elements and a back button to navigate back and forth on a page.

Make sure to design a logical and free flow mapping user’s behavior for increased engagement on the app.

#4 Implement Accessible Design

Users have diverse needs and multiple issues. No two users and their app movements are the same. A successful app needs to be accessible to all users. Some users have disabilities and accessible design will help implement the functionality to make the app accessible.

Speech to Text Converter, Voice Commands, Gesture Controls

An example of a feature that assists users is a speech-to-text converter. It helps people with visual impairments so they can send messages and emails. Plus, when you use the right colours, people with colour blindness can access the app. Your app can use voice commands and gesture controls for people with motor disabilities.

Take note that it is essential to adhere to the accessibility standards and protocols when designing the application. Integrate screen readers and ensure complete navigation support for these inputs. You must test the app for accessibility before launching it in the store.

While designing for accessibility, ensure your app fulfills the legal and ethical considerations.

#5 Define Consistent Interface

The user interface is a crucial part of the customer journey and user experience (UX). To ensure complete consistency and cohesiveness while designing the app interface, use standard Android-based UI elements to get started. You must adhere to the platform’s design guidelines for uniformity.

You can incorporate the responsive touch targets to make the interface interactive. You should ensure proper sizes for the touch input so there’s no interaction friction.

Consistency in design contributes to establishing a solid brand identity.

#6 Implement Offline Functionality

For a great user experience, it is important for your app to have smooth and uninterrupted performance even when there is no internet connection available i.e. in offline mode.

Local Caching and Storage

Incorporate local caching and storage for immediate content access without the Internet. Room and WorkManager are excellent caching tools that ensure the offline availability of your applications.

Additionally, include indicators to show that your app is being used in offline mode. Plus, add error messages to enhance the user experience.

By adding these features for offline usage, you can improve your app’s reliability and stability.

Last Words

Developing a dynamic and user-friendly Android app holistically and in a planned manner avoids many software maintenance challenges.

Therefore, adopt best practices to develop your Android app so it gets the chance to stand out in the competitive Google Play Store or Flippa.  What’s next?  Promoting your app of course.