Mobile App Design Essentials

Design for thumbs, not just for eyes. When designing mobile interfaces, I always ask myself: Can users actually reach this… with one hand? Here’s the thing: 📈 49% of users navigate one-handed 📉 Only 15% use two hands That top-right corner? It might look clean on your artboard — but it’s a pain to reach in real life. So here are 3 quick rules I follow: 1️⃣ Primary actions → bottom right 2️⃣ Cancel/secondary actions → lower left 3️⃣ Important content → never buried in red zones Beautiful design should feel easy, not just look good. Have you ever tapped “delete” by mistake because of poor button placement? Let’s talk about intentional mobile UX. #uxuidesign #mobileux #usability #interactiondesign #uxprinciples #uxstrategy

🔎 How To Redesign Complex Navigation: How We Restructured Intercom’s IA (https://lnkd.in/ezbHUYyU), a practical case study on how the Intercom team fixed the maze of features, settings, workflows and navigation labels. Neatly put together by Pranava Tandra. 🚫 Customers can’t use features they can’t discover. ✅ Simplifying is about bringing order to complexity. ✅ First, map out the flow of customers and their needs. ✅ Study how people navigate and where they get stuck. ✅ Spot recurring friction points that resonate across tasks. 🚫 Don’t group features based on how they are built. ✅ Group features based on how users think and work. ✅ Bring similar things together (e.g. Help, Knowledge). ✅ Establish dedicated hubs for key parts of the product. ✅ Relocate low-priority features to workflows/settings. 🤔 People don’t use products in predictable ways. 🤔 Users often struggle with cryptic icons and labels. ✅ Show labels in a collapsible nav drawer, not on hover. ✅ Use content testing to track if users understand icons. ✅ Allow users to pin/unpin items in their navigation drawer. One of the helpful ways to prioritize sections in navigation is by layering customer journeys on top of each other to identify most frequent areas of use. The busy “hubs” of user interactions typically require faster and easier access across the product. Instead of using AI or designer’s mental model to reorganize navigation, invite users and run a card sorting session with them. People are usually not very good at naming things, but very good at grouping and organizing them. And once you have a new navigation, test and refine it with tree testing. As Pranava writes, real people don’t use products in perfectly predictable ways. They come in with an infinite variety of needs, assumptions, and goals. Our job is to address friction points for their realities — by reducing confusion and maximizing clarity. Good IA work and UX research can do just that. [Useful resources in the comments ↓] #ux #IA

I am a Senior Security Engineer working at Google with over 5 years of experience. If I could go back to my early security interview days, I would study these 50+ real security engineering problem statements instead of wasting months jumping between blogs, courses, and random CTF tasks. These are the fundamentals that matter when you work at scale. These are the problems you actually solve inside Google, Meta, Amazon. And if you want to break into security engineering in 2025, learn these by doing. 1) Risk, Access, Identity ➤ Design a secure authentication system for a billion users • Think about password hashing, rate limits, and device signals. • Study how login flows break when latency increases at scale. • Understand how to store credentials safely and how to respond to mass credential stuffing. ➤ Build OAuth based login for third party apps • Understand authorization codes, refresh tokens, and redirect security. • Think about scopes and how to limit what apps can access. • Handle token theft, rotation, and revocation properly. ➤ Design a Zero Trust access model inside a large company • No request is trusted by default. Every access is verified. • Study identity based routing, device posture checks, and continuous auth. • Understand the tradeoff between developer productivity and stricter access controls. ➤ Create an automated privileged access review system • Detect unused admin rights and auto remove them. • Trigger reviews for high risk roles on a schedule. • Maintain audit logs that satisfy compliance teams without slowing engineers down. ➤ Build a secure session management system for a mobile app • Think about session IDs, refresh tokens, inactivity timeouts. • Handle sessions across multiple devices and platforms. • Protect sessions from replay, theft, and fixation. ➤ Design an MFA service that works reliably worldwide • Consider SMS latency, unreliable networks, and fallback strategies. • Support TOTP, push notifications, and hardware keys. • Reduce friction while increasing assurance. ➤ Handle account recovery securely at scale • Protect against social engineering and recovery abuse. • Use device history, previous login signals, and risk scoring. • Build flows that work even when users lose all devices. 2) Network Security and Traffic Protection ➤ Design a DDOS detection and mitigation pipeline • Understand volumetric, protocol, and application layer attacks. • Build real time traffic analytics and automated blocking. … I’ve put the rest of them on my Substack. Link to the newsletter in the comments!

Did you know 75% of smartphone interactions come down to just scrolling your thumb on a touch screen? This means people don’t want to need both hands to navigate a mobile site. They want everything to be a thumb tap away. If your site is a hassle to use on mobile, people just won’t use it. As you think about designing your site, consider what thumb-only navigation, or "Thumb Zones," might look like. “Thumb Zones” are where users are most comfortable and likely to take action on a mobile device. You can see this in the diagram below (courtesy of Branding Brand), and includes the following: → Primary CTAs (like "shop now") in the primary zone. → Essential information and secondary CTAs (like “learn more” instead of “shop now”) in the secondary zone. → Controls to change the mode or initiate different tasks (including search, privacy policies, and navigation menus) in the tertiary zone. This reduces friction by establishing a hierarchy, keeping the subconscious engaged and it maximizes the “tappability” of your content. Now think about your current post-click landing pages and checkouts, would you change anything?

beatvest D30 retention is 6x higher than the average app. Here are my learnings: 1/ Make your product highly relevant - Find a real user problem  - Conduct user interviews to learn how they would phrase their problem - Communicate problem-solution fit crazy well in your ads, App Store Page and onboarding flow 2/ Have extensive CRM flows in place - We have a >60% open rate on emails - We built dozens of email flows depending on the users stage in the app - We actively promote our activation mechanisms in the emails (streaks, etc.) 3/ Make your product a habit - 12% of our subscribers open beatvest every single day in the 1st week - Make it very clear which step users have to take next in their user journey, they need a specific goal when they open the app - Obsess on the first day(s) rather than later-stage, uplifting retention early has a bigger impact as there is a larger bulk of users that you can affect with the measures - Think about which mechanisms you could build into your product to make users open the app every single day; e.g. we built a 10 day challenge, streaks, points and rewards #product #retention

I've been exploring how design impacts usability, especially Don Norman's book on Design of Everyday Things really does make an impact. On the same light, HubSpot's onboarding process stands out as a prime example. HubSpot's Onboarding Excellence: - Personalized Setup: Right after sign-up, HubSpot guides users through a tailored setup process, asking about their business needs to customize the dashboard accordingly. - Interactive Tutorials: The platform offers step-by-step tutorials that walk users through key features, ensuring they can navigate the tools effectively. - Resource Accessibility: HubSpot provides easily accessible resources, like help documents and videos, directly within the interface, allowing users to find answers without leaving the platform. Aligning with Don Norman's Principles: - Visibility: Essential functions are prominently displayed, reducing the learning curve for new users. - Feedback: Immediate responses to user actions, such as confirmation messages after completing a task, keep users informed and engaged. - Consistency: Uniform design elements and terminology throughout the platform help users build familiarity and confidence. HubSpot's approach demonstrates that thoughtful design enhances usability, leading to a more intuitive and satisfying user experience. How have you seen design and usability balanced in products you've used or developed?

Stop sending surveys. Seriously. They're a bad habit that gives you polite, sanitized data, not real insights. I found a way to get a 78% response rate and honest feedback by doing the exact opposite of what every marketing book recommends. Here are 5 customer research methods that beat surveys every single time: 1) WhatsApp Voice Notes > Written Surveys: ↳ People speak faster than they type ↳ Emotion comes through in voice tone ↳ No survey fatigue Method: Send a voice note asking ONE specific question "Hey [Name], quick question - what made you choose us over [competitor]?" 2) Watch Usage > Ask About Usage: ↳ What people do ≠ what they say they do ↳ Behavior reveals truth, words reveal intentions Method: Screen recordings + heatmaps show reality Ask: "How often do you use feature X?" → They say "daily" Data shows: Last used 3 weeks ago 3) Churned Customer Calls > Happy Customer Testimonials: ↳ Satisfaction bias makes happy customers less honest ↳ Churned customers have nothing to lose Method: Call customers who cancelled in the last 30 days "What could we have done differently to keep you?" Most brutal, most valuable insights you'll get. 4) Social Media Stalking > Focus Groups: ↳ Real conversations happen on Twitter/LinkedIn ↳ Unfiltered opinions in natural settings Method: Search "[your brand] OR [competitor] OR [problem you solve]" People complaining/praising without knowing you're watching. 5) Customer Success Team Coffee Chats > Executive Surveys: ↳ Front-line teams hear the real feedback daily ↳ Filter gets removed when it's informal Method: Weekly coffee with CS/Sales teams "What are customers actually saying?" Not the sanitized feedback that reaches leadership. The Pattern I've Noticed: The closer you get to natural conversation, the better the insights. → Formal surveys = What customers think you want to hear → Informal chats = What customers actually think My personal favourite: Join Customer WhatsApp Groups/Communities- I have joined discord & reddit communities Don't moderate. Don't participate initially. Just observe. How they talk about problems. What words they use. Their real frustrations. Pure gold for messaging and positioning. The Reality:Most "customer insights" are actually "customer politeness." People won't tell you your product sucks on a formal survey. They will tell their friend on a WhatsApp call. Your job? Be the friend, not the survey. Which method are you going to try first?

I spent 5 years scaling Superhuman's white glove, concierge onboarding. …and another 2 years rebuilding it in product. My biggest lessons on effective product onboarding: It must be *opinionated*, *interruptive*, and *interactive*. ••• 🧐 Opinionated There's a million ways to use Superhuman, but only one correct way. We had unopinionated steps in the onboarding, like teaching "j" and "k" to navigate. But what really matters is Inbox Zero. Marking Done. Our most extreme form is Get Me To Zero — a pop-up that practically coerces you to Mark Done *everything*. This experience gets an astonishing 60% new user opt-in. New users want to experience something different; they want to learn. We pruned away the bland, and left behind pure, unfiltered opinion. Exactly what made our concierge onboarding effective. 💥 Interruptive We've all seen them before: checklists, tooltips, nudges. Inoffensive growth clutter that piles up in the corners of your app. We shipped all this and more. But it had precisely zero impact. Our most impactful changes were interruptive: on-rails demos, full-screen takeovers, product overlays. Arresting user attention is critical: if an experience is tucked away in the corner, it will be ignored. If it's ignored, it may as well not exist. 🕹️ Interactive You can't be Opinionated and Interruptive without being Interactive. It's a crime to force users to engage with non-actionable information. Instead, provide functionality: an action to take, setting to toggle, CTA to click. It's more fun AND users build muscle memory. There is something to do in every step of our onboarding. Perhaps that's how we get away with an onboarding nearly 50 screens long 🤭 ••• Final thought: if you're struggling with this flow, simply watch new users. Note all the places you want to jump in — there's your onboarding 👌 s/o to the very thoughtful Superhumans building this: Ben ✨Kalyn Lilliana Kevin Peik Erin Gaurav 💜 #plg #onboarding #activation

If your onboarding feels clunky, confusing, or last-minute… your client can feel it too. The work doesn’t begin after the payment. It begins the moment someone says “yes.” And this is where most people drop the ball. I’ve been there too. Until I started using AI to simplify, personalize, and hold space for my onboarding flow, without losing the human in the process. Here’s what that looks like: Step 1: Welcome, with intention: As soon as a client signs up, I feed their context to ChatGPT: “Write a warm welcome email to a new client who just signed up for [X service]. Acknowledge their goals, set the tone for our work together, and share what to expect this week.” It helps me start the relationship right, with presence, not a template. . . . Step 2: Kickoff kit, custom to them Instead of sending a generic Notion board or onboarding doc… I use AI to create a personalized one-pager: - Their name, goals, timeline - Pre-work checklist - Tools we’ll use - Access links - FAQs based on their niche It makes them feel seen. . . . Step 3: Pre-call prep that’s actually useful If I’ve collected form answers or voice notes, I prompt: “Summarize this client’s challenges and suggest 3 angles I should explore in our kickoff call.” I walk into the call aligned and calm. They feel it. . . . Step 4: Clarity recap - fast After the call, I feed my notes to ChatGPT: “Turn this into a call recap email with clear next steps and aligned expectations. Keep it real, not robotic.” It saves 30 minutes of staring at the screen and helps me build trust in the tiny details. . . . Step 5: Ongoing onboarding, quietly handled Need reminders? Nudges? Status updates? I’ll set up small AI workflows that keep things moving without nagging or micro-managing. Because onboarding isn’t a task. It’s the first chapter of your client experience. You don’t need AI to replace the way you work. But you can use it to hold the edges, so you show up more fully in the middle. That’s what onboarding should feel like. Intentional. Warm. Clear. And deeply human. If you want the actual AI stack I use to support this flow (without feeling cold or corporate), comment "ONBOARD" or DM me and I’ll send it over. Follow Vartika Mishra !