Progressive Web Apps have been accepted wholeheartedly not just by developers but have been given a “thumbs-up” by web-users, as well. Since the user experience is designed to please users, hence it must appeal to them and the best thing about it is that there is a lot of scope for improvement.
With Progressive Web Apps, the android or iPhone app developers get the chance to reset their expectations and improvise a lot as they design user experiences on the web. These web apps allow you to let go of the rules which you had learned as a graphic designer, as here each app has its own special characteristics, emblems, logo, and features. So, what is required is to adjust them according to our requirements because if you stick to this basic concept of “Follow Rules” you will never finish your app development project. Another great tip here is to always start each project with a one-pager and decide what it within the scope of the project and what is not.
The problems cannot be solved by sticking to the rules, but they can certainly be bypassed with a good design. Hence, the key lies in turning oneself into an artist, as he is the one who is allowed to bend rules in order to develop what is loved or desired by end-users. In the present times, millions of apps are being developed and downloaded on platforms such as Windows, iOS, and Android, among others.
Thus, it is evident that there is a lot of rush in the arena of mobile apps and in order to ensure that your app attains success; you need to design it brilliantly. That is the core of success and keeping the app design simple can work wonders for your app. User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) of your app are crucial in the context of mobile app development project. It has been quite some time that UX has turned to be a crucial design discipline. Today mobile technology penetrate in almost every aspect of life, hence it is no surprise that more and more developers today look at a mobile-first approach. This way, UX designs have proved to be the key to mobile app development.
So, in order to ease the mobile app designing process, here we have presented a checklist for Progressive Web apps, that app developers can look up to in order to avoid making mistakes and keep the development them happy at the same time:
Users are going to feel comfortable while using your Progressive Web App if its style can be tweaked a little to match their Operating System (OS). It is possible to do this by implementing different menus and buttons per platform, or you can just begin by using the system’s preferred font, which will be separate for iOS, Android, Windows, and others. Microsoft took the lead on this trend with Segoe and they were quickly followed by others. Let the hard work of Microsoft (Segoe), Google (Roboto), Apple (San Francisco) or even Mozilla (Fira Sans) make your job easier while improving the experience for the user. System fonts are one item that you should never leave off your list.
Even though it is not really impossible, but is too darn difficult to incorporate advanced touch interactions, like “swipe to dismiss” or “pull to refresh” navigation menus. While you think such interactions will wow users, this is only the case if they work as expected. If not then you are in trouble.
If your PWAs need advanced touch interactions, ensure that they work well on real devices. Usually, this signifies that you have found an implementation of this feature that has been developed by someone else with great effort, like brilliant react-swappable-views.
Meanwhile, you can entirely avoid this problem by modifying the design, this way it won’t suggest advanced touch interactions, for instance, you can use bottom navigation tabs in place of tabs.
In case of Progressive Web Apps, often the current URL is not easily accessible; hence you must ensure that the users are able to share what they are looking at, easily. A share button can be integrated which allows the users to copy the URL to the clipboard so that it can be shared on prominent social networking sites.
When using Chrome, even a single tap on the text is often interpreted as a selection. Due to this, a bug is created which taps on buttons, and other ‘non-content’ gets recognized as selections, which results in an odd experience for the users. This issue can be resolved, by marking non-content elements with this CSS property:
user-select: none;
When the user presses back from a detail, page must retain scroll position on the previous list page. As a user picks items from a list and views its details, then tapping back must not bring them to the top of the list. Here the major aim is that while the user taps, he should be brought back to the list page “with the same scroll position” which they were at prior to pressing on the item.
After all, browsing a list of products, articles, or other items get difficult when pressing back brings the user to the top of the list again.
When you make navigation more difficult for users, then those users tend not to come back again.
Blocking on the network must not slow down screen transitions. It often happens that as a user taps a link or button in a web app, mainly a server-rendered web app, they have to wait to look at the present screen before they are suddenly taken to a new screen. In case of Progressive Web Apps, this kind of delay and sudden activity is unacceptable and feels unresponsive. After all, it pretty much dismisses this idea that the app is locally running on the phone.
You must aim to make the users feel that the whole “app” is stored locally on your device and that it is only the content which is being loaded dynamically. The more you understand your user, the easier this will be.
Progressive Web Apps are the need of the hour as they allow developers to deliver an intuitive web experience to the users on their phones. By simply implementing these recommendations you can make your users have a great experience using your app.
Arun Goyal, MD at Octal IT Solution, a leading Web & Mobile App Development Company offering platform to hire a dedicated developer for your own app development project. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
