Mobile Apps: The Rule of Thumb

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Welcome To The Appstrue
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Mobile Apps The Rule of Thumb

• When it comes to mobile apps, there are some key
  trends relating directly to the way that the
  majority of people use their phones. Whenever you
  create an app, or hire someone else to create one
  on your behalf, you must insist that the
  following four points are carefully managed.
• Mobile apps that fail to consider the following
  four things WILL fail. If youre using a third
  party mobile app developer, then you must insist
  on seeing some of their existing apps, and you
  must evaluate them on how well they address the
  following four conditions.

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• Touch Target Size there is very little more
  frustrating than an app that hasnt accounted for
  peoples pointer target size. An app that fails
  to address this will cause their users to hit
  buttons they dont want to, and prevent them from
  hitting buttons that they do want to hit.
• Weve all encountered apps like this you try to
  get to a particular page, but your thumbs are so
  big you hit the wrong button and you end up
  bouncing around the app just hoping that this
  time youll hit the correct icon.
• People have relatively similar thumb tip and
  fingertip sizes, and you must cater to the
  biggest denominator. It is much better to have
  icons that are too big, than icons that are too
  small.

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• Natural Thumb Zone when navigating an app (i.e.
  scrolling and pushing buttons), around 30 of
  people use their pointer fingers, and the rest
  use their thumbs. Most of us combine the two, but
  lean more towards one of the other.
• Given the large amount of people that scroll
  using their thumbs, its important that you lay
  the app out with a natural thumb zone. This is
  the area of the screen that the person can
  comfortable touch with their thumb. As they move
  out of the thumb zone it leads them to over
  extend, and this can cause thumb pain. If they do
  it too much, it can actually cause damage such as
  Repetitive Strain Injury.

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• Mobile app development UK needs to take account
  of the thumb zone. There are a few reasons for
  this. First, you want your customers to be happy
  with your app, so you create it in a way that
  makes it easier for them to use. Secondly, you
  need to watch out that the HSE doesnt come after
  you for poor design. Finally, you want to show
  people that you understand app development
  properly.

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• Left Handed vs. Right Handed you need to be
  aware that lefties and righties use mobile apps
  in a mirror image to each other. While it isnt
  yet essential to create an app that works for
  both, it is certainly becoming so. 1 in 10 people
  are left handed, so it will become increasingly
  important to provide mobile apps that cater to
  them. In the future, we expect there to be
  technologies that allow mobile app developers to
  flip the entire app from left to right.
• Eliminate Clutter finally, you must eliminate
  clutter. Not only does this make the app more
  logical and easier to follow, it also minimises
  the risk of the user hitting an area of the
  screen that they dont want to hit.
• If your apps have a high bounce and uninstall
  rate, then its probably because its breaking
  one of these rules.