Improving User Experience for Apps

🪜 Designing Better Progress Steps UX. With practical techniques to help people navigate and complete complex forms with or without progress steps ↓ ✅ Progress steps break a long form into small, manageable parts. ✅ They show where users are and how much they have left to go. 🤔 But: they are often overlooked and don’t scale well on mobile. 🤔 Difficult to design for dynamic flows with conditional sections. ✅ For simple forms, always start without a progress indicator. ✅ Tell users what they need and how much time it will take. ✅ Show progress as “Step [X] out of [Y]” with a text label. ✅ Add a drop-down to support quick jumps between steps. 🚫 For complex forms, don’t rely on visual progress bar alone. ✅ Always include text labels under each step for easy, precise jumps. ✅ Underline labels to make it clear that users can use them to navigate. ✅ Design 6 states: incomplete, active, complete, error, disabled, warning. 🤔 You can rarely display 5+ progress steps on mobile. ✅ Keep active label visible but hide future and past steps. ✅ Show a Back link on the top, Next button at the bottom. ✅ For long forms, repeat the Back link at the bottom, too. ✅ On desktop, vertical progress steps often work better. ✅ Set up an overview page with links to single steps (“task list”). ✅ Allow users to expand and collapse all steps and sub-steps. ✅ Don’t forget to highlight error status in the progress step. Only few things are more frustrating than a progress bar that seems to be stuck. Complex forms often have conditional sections, so users end up going in circles, staying on the same step as they move between sections. It’s a common problem with horizontal layout, and a common reason why people leave. With a vertical layout, we can always show all sections with all sub-steps, explaining to users where they are and what’s coming up next. We can expand and collapse some steps and support fast navigation and quick jumps. We can also highlight all errors or missing data and explain what’s actually missing. A few smaller pages usually perform better than one long page. One column layout usually causes fewer errors as multi-column layout. Give users one column with vertical progress steps, and you might be surprised how much faster they get through the entire form, despite its complexity and length. Useful resources: Stepped Progression, by Goldman Sachs https://lnkd.in/eHbB5EFu Multi-Step Wizard, by GE HealthCare https://lnkd.in/ezA__z_E Task List Pattern, by Gov.uk https://lnkd.in/eb3PzTEJ Form Design: From Zero to Hero, by Adam Silver https://lnkd.in/eTBQxBXg Wizards Design Recommendations, by Raluca Budiu https://lnkd.in/eYYxUUDM Loading And Progress Indicators, by Taras Bakusevych https://lnkd.in/e5KFPiiq #ux #design

I went to an AI UX workshop last night expecting recycled LinkedIn advice about "building AI trust through transparency." Instead, Isabella Yamin tore down LinkedIn's job posting flow using her CarbonCopies AI framework in real-time, while founders shared raw implementation struggles. It completely changed how I'm rethinking Maibel's onboarding flow. Here's what I stole from B2B SaaS principles to redesign emotional AI for B2C: 1️⃣ Progressive disclosure with purpose LinkedIn's fatal flaw? Optimizing for completion ease > Outcome quality. Recruiters are drowning in irrelevant applications because AI never learns what "qualified" means. The personalization paradox: How do we give users enough control without overwhelming them? Users don't want "frictionless". They want INFORMED control. 📌 At Maibel: I was falling into the same trap, making emotional coaching setup so simple that the AI couldn't understand user context. Now? Progressive complexity with clear trade-offs. Show users how their choices impact outcomes. → Want deeper insights? Add more context. → Want faster setup? Here's what the AI can't personalize. 2️⃣ Closed-loop data intelligence: What Platfio gets right They've built a platform for software agencies where where every data point feeds back into the entire system. User preferences in marketing flows shape proposals. Campaign performance shapes future recommendations. Every interaction becomes intelligence for future recommendations. 📌 At Maibel: Most wellness apps store emotional check-ins like digital journals. I'm turning them into predictive feedback loops. Emotional intelligence isn’t static but COMPOUNDS. Today's reflections shift tomorrow's suggestions. Patterns fuel prevention. Users' inputs on Monday could predict AND prevent Friday's breakdown. 3️⃣  Multi-modal creativity: Wubble's transparency approach Translating images and files into music - who'd have thought? They've cracked multi-modal creativity where users become co-creators, not passive consumers. The breakthrough moment for me: What if users could see how their visual environment contributes to emotional context? 📌 At Maibel: Users upload images of their day and see how AI analyzes emotional cues: cluttered workspace = overwhelm, junk food = stress eating. Multi-modal understanding users can contribute to and influence. 💡 The bottom line? B2B Saas gets one thing right: Every interaction has to earn trust. In B2B, failed AI means churn. In emotional AI, failed trust breaks belief in tech entirely. 📌 Here's what we're doing differently at Maibel: → Progressive complexity → Context-aware feedback → Multi-modal participation → Intelligence that compounds with every input. It's not just about building WITH AI. I'm designing systems that learn understand YOU before you even need to explain yourself. Kudos to Isabella, Shivang Gupta The Generative Beings, Shaad Sufi Hayden Cassar and everyone who shared deep product insights.

We're building a new app. Last Monday, I spent the morning on Zoom calls with a physiotherapist, a doctor, and a software developer. Most people picture launching a product as this big, polished moment. You build the thing, you announce it, people start using it. But actually there’s more value in doing the opposite. Right now every Monday, our whole team cancels everything else and spends the morning on one-on-one Zoom calls, walking individual users through the app. One person at a time. It's probably the least scalable thing we could be doing. But it's already taught us lessons that we wouldn’t have figured out if we were building in a room by ourselves. Eg: I watched several users struggle through a step in the onboarding that I thought was totally straightforward. Watching real people try to use it for the first time made it painfully obvious that the step was tedious and confusing. So we're removing it. Then there are the conversations. When a user describes what the app does in their own words, they almost always frame it better than the tagline we spent hours trying to write. There's something about hearing from someone who isn't in the weeds like we are. They see things clearly in a way that's really hard to do when you've been staring at the same product for months. But the part that surprised me most, was how it changed the way I think about the product. Before these calls, our users were just numbers on a dashboard. Now I've spoken to a physiotherapist trying to get into private practice, a doctor studying for board certification, and a software developer in South Africa trying to close his next deal. When I think about new features now, I picture their faces, rather than an impersonal “ideal customer profile” document - it’s real people, with real goals, who are actively using the app to try and improve their lives, which is super cool. And this doesn't just apply to building an app. If you're thinking about starting something on the side, the instinct is to wait until everything is perfect: build the website first, figure out the pricing, set up a landing page, make it all look professional before you talk to anyone etc. But the best thing you can do is the opposite. Talk to real people first, BEFORE you build anything: ask them what they're struggling with, listen to how they describe their problems in their own words. You'll learn more from 5 conversations than from 5 months of planning in your head. Sometimes the best way to build something people actually love is to just… talk to them 🙂 — · — · — if you found this useful: 1. follow me for more 2. drop a cheeky like (thank you 😉) 3. repost so your friends can learn too

Mastering Real-World App Performance: Our Strategy at Space-O Technologies In the dynamic world of mobile app development, testing and monitoring app performance under real-world conditions is crucial. At Space-O Technologies, we’ve developed a robust approach that ensures our apps not only meet but exceed performance expectations. Here’s how we do it, backed by real data and results. 📊📱 1. Real-User Monitoring (RUM): Our Tactic: We use RUM to gather insights on how our apps perform in real user environments. This has led to a 30% improvement in identifying and resolving user-specific issues. Benefit: By understanding actual user interactions, we've increased user satisfaction rates by 20%. 2. Load Testing in Realistic Conditions: Strategy: We simulate various user conditions, from low network connectivity to high traffic, to ensure our apps can handle real-world stresses. This approach has reduced app downtime by 40%. Outcome: As a result, we've seen a 25% increase in user retention due to improved app reliability. 3. Beta Testing with a Diverse User Base: Method: Our beta testing involves users from various demographics and tech-savviness. This diverse feedback led to a 35% increase in the app’s usability across different user groups. Impact: Enhanced user experience has led to a 15% increase in positive app reviews and ratings. 4. Performance Analytics Tools: Application: We employ advanced analytics tools to continuously monitor app performance metrics. This has helped us in optimizing app features, resulting in a 20% increase in app speed and responsiveness. Advantage: Improved performance metrics have directly contributed to a 30% growth in active daily users. 5. AI-Powered Incident Detection: Innovation: Using AI for incident detection and prediction has been a game-changer, reducing our issue resolution time by 50%. Result: Faster issue resolution has led to a 60% reduction in user complaints related to performance. 6. Regular Updates Based on Performance Data: Practice: We roll out updates based on concrete performance data, which has led to a 40% improvement in feature adoption and efficiency. Return on Investment: This strategic update process has enhanced overall app engagement by 25%. 🔍 Ensuring Peak Performance in the Real World At Space-O Technologies, we’re committed to delivering apps that perform flawlessly in the real world. Our methods are tried and tested, ensuring that our clients’ apps thrive under any condition. If you’re striving for excellence in app performance, let’s connect and share insights! https://lnkd.in/df_Pj6Ps Jasmine Patel , Bhaval Patel, Ankit Shah , Vijayant Das, Priyanka Wadhwani , Amit Patoliya , Yuvrajsinh Vaghela , Asha Kumar - SAFe Agilist #AppPerformance #RealWorldTesting #MobileAppDevelopment #TechInnovation #mobileappdevelopment #mobileapp #mobileappdesign

What's your approach to designing user flows? ✏️ -Understand the User and Goals: Start by gaining a deep understanding of the target users, their needs, and their goals. Conduct user research, interviews, and surveys to gather insights into their behaviors, pain points, and motivations. Define User Personas: Create user personas to represent different segments of your target audience. Personas help humanize the users and guide the design process to meet their specific needs. -Map the User Journey: Outline the entire user journey from the initial touchpoint to the final goal. This involves understanding the various stages users go through when interacting with your product and identifying potential entry and exit points. Identify Key User Tasks: Identify the primary tasks users want to accomplish within your product. Focus on the core functionality and prioritize these tasks in the user flow. Create a Flowchart: Visualize the user flow by creating a flowchart. Use arrows to show the sequence of steps users will take to complete their tasks. Consider different scenarios and decision points they might encounter. Keep it Simple and Intuitive: Aim for simplicity and clarity in the user flow. Minimize the number of steps required to achieve a task and avoid unnecessary complexity that could confuse users. Consistency across Platforms: If your product is available on multiple platforms (e.g., web, mobile), ensure a consistent user flow across all of them. Users should feel comfortable and familiar with the flow, regardless of the device they are using. Anticipate User Errors: Design the user flow with the anticipation of user errors or confusion. Provide clear error messages and guidance to help users recover quickly. User Testing and Iteration: Test the user flow with real users through usability testing sessions. Analyze the feedback and data to identify pain points and areas of improvement. Iterate and refine the user flow based on the insights gained. Collaborate with the Team: Involve stakeholders, designers, developers, and other team members in the user flow design process. Collaborative efforts lead to a more comprehensive and well-rounded user experience. Consider Edge Cases: Take into account edge cases and less common scenarios in your user flow design. This ensures that your product is accessible and usable for all users, regardless of their specific circumstances. Accessibility and Inclusivity: Design with accessibility and inclusivity in mind. Ensure that the user flow is usable by people with disabilities and diverse backgrounds.

💡Measuring UX using Google HEART HEART is a framework developed by Google for evaluating the user experience of a product. It provides a holistic view of the UX by considering both qualitative & quantitative metrics. HEART stands for ✅ Happiness: How satisfied users are with using your product. It can be measured through surveys and ratings (quantitative) and reviews and user interviews (qualitative). Tracking happiness is right when you analyze the general performance of your product. ✅ Engagement: How actively users are interacting with the product. This includes metrics like the number of visits, time spent on the product, frequency of interactions, and the depth of interactions (e.g., the number of features used). Analyzing engagement will help you understand how compelling & valuable the product is to users. ✅ Adoption: How effectively the product attracts new users and converts them into active users. Key metrics include user sign-ups, onboarding completion rates, and activation rates (e.g., the percentage of users who perform a key action after signing up). Understanding adoption helps identify barriers during product onboarding. ✅ Retention: How well the product retains its users over time. It focuses on reducing churn and keeping users engaged over the long term. Metrics like retention rate and cohort analysis are used to measure retention. Improving retention involves addressing pain points, providing ongoing value, and fostering a sense of loyalty among users. ✅ Task success: How effectively users can accomplish their goals or tasks using the product. This includes metrics like task completion rate, error rate, and time to complete tasks. User journey mapping, user interviews, and usability testing can help identify usability issues and optimize the user flow to enhance task success. ❗ Top 3 mistakes when using HEART 1️⃣ Placing too much emphasis on quantitative metrics at the expense of qualitative insights. While quantitative data is valuable for analysis, it's essential to complement this with qualitative data, such as user feedback and observations, to gain a deeper understanding of user behavior and preferences. 2️⃣ Ignoring the context of interaction: Failing to consider the context in which users interact with the product can lead to misleading interpretations of the data.  3️⃣ Lack of user segmentation: Not segmenting users based on relevant factors such as demographics, behavior, or usage patterns can obscure important insights and lead to generic conclusions that may not apply to all user groups. 📺 Guide to using Google HEART: https://lnkd.in/dhkwy_jN 🚨 Live session "How to measure design success" 🚨 I will run a live session on measuring design success in February. Will talk about how to choose the right metrics for your product & how to measure product's success in meeting business goals   https://lnkd.in/dgm6t_jf #UX #design #productdesign #metrics #measure

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

I’ve learned this the hard way, You don’t “design trust” with colors and logos. You build it with moments. Tiny, quiet decisions in the UI that make users feel safe, understood, and in control. In this post, I’m sharing 6 UX patterns I use it in real products to build trust: ✅ Visual consistency (nothing breaks the rhythm) ✅ Microinteractions that say “yes, this worked” ✅ Clear error states, no cold red messages ✅ Transparent data use, no dark patterns ✅ Success confirmations that feel human ✅ Secure cues that reduce hesitation These are the patterns that Build trust before users even realize it. 👉 Swipe through to see examples. 💬 Comment with the one you use most.

Money is emotional. So every fintech product is too, whether you design it that way or not. Nobody opens a fintech app casually. They come in with one question in mind: “Can I trust this?” Not just your brand. Not just your UI. But the outcome. ✔️Will the money arrive? ✔️Will this fail? ✔️Did that transaction actually go through? That moment of uncertainty is where trust is either built… or broken. And design plays a bigger role in that than most teams admit. Because in fintech: Unclear flows feel risky. Vague messages feel unsafe. Delays without feedback feel like something went wrong. You’re not just designing screens. You’re designing reassurance in high-stakes moments. 👉The person checking their balance at 11pm, anxious about rent. 👉The one sending money to family in another country, needing that confirmation screen to actually mean something. 👉The small business owner reconciling payments at the end of a long day, exhausted and trusting the interface to be honest with them. These are not casual interactions. They’re moments where people need certainty. So the question isn’t: does this look good? It’s: does this feel trustworthy? – Does the flow remove doubt or introduce it? – Does the system clearly confirm what happened? – Does the error message guide or confuse? Because trust in fintech isn’t built with branding. It’s built in the details. Every clear label. Every predictable step. Every honest, immediate piece of feedback. All of it adds up to one thing: Confidence. The best fintech products don’t just move money. They make people feel safe moving it. And that’s what users come for in the first place. That’s the job. Everything else is decoration. And if you’re working on something where trust and clarity are non-negotiable, let’s connect. Always open to collaborations and the right opportunities #Fintech #UIUX #UXDesign #ProductDesign #TrustInDesign #HumanCenteredDesign

Traditional usability tests often treat user experience factors in isolation, as if different factors like usability, trust, and satisfaction are independent of each other. But in reality, they are deeply interconnected. By analyzing each factor separately, we miss the big picture - how these elements interact and shape user behavior. This is where Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) can be incredibly helpful. Instead of looking at single data points, SEM maps out the relationships between key UX variables, showing how they influence each other. It helps UX teams move beyond surface-level insights and truly understand what drives engagement. For example, usability might directly impact trust, which in turn boosts satisfaction and leads to higher engagement. Traditional methods might capture these factors separately, but SEM reveals the full story by quantifying their connections. SEM also enhances predictive modeling. By integrating techniques like Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), it helps forecast how users will react to design changes before they are implemented. Instead of relying on intuition, teams can test different scenarios and choose the most effective approach. Another advantage is mediation and moderation analysis. UX researchers often know that certain factors influence engagement, but SEM explains how and why. Does trust increase retention, or is it satisfaction that plays the bigger role? These insights help prioritize what really matters. Finally, SEM combined with Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) identifies UX elements that are absolutely essential for engagement. This ensures that teams focus resources on factors that truly move the needle rather than making small, isolated tweaks with minimal impact.