A complete guide to app UI design principles and associated costs

User interface (UI) design plays an important role in making an app successful. Today's people generally prefer using a clean UI for a smoother experience. Complex and unoptimized UI not only makes application heavy but also fails to meet user expectations. This leads to decreased user engagement and lower retention rates. In this blog, we will discuss the significance of app UI design and its making costs. Let's get started. 

The Significance of UI Design

User interface design and development is more than just making the mobile app appealing. One of the core objectives of UI design is to take user experience to the next level. A well-crafted app user interface allows users to seamlessly navigate through the application, find what they are actually looking for, etc. Apart from that, an excellent user interface also leads to higher engagement rates, improved user satisfaction, and retention rates. Let's have a look at the major UI design principles:

1. Simplicity: Clean and simple UI is the backbone of any app's success. An UI cluttered with unwanted elements decreases the overall user experience. Therefore, custom application developers always suggest keeping the UI design as simple as possible so that it can offer only necessary information to the users. 

2. Feedback: User feedback plays an important role in making the app successful. Providing valuable feedback through visual cues like changes in animations, notifications, and button color assures app users that their actions have been authentically processed and recognized. 

3. Consistency: Consistency in user interface design allows users to understand how an app functions. Experts suggest using simple fonts, consistent colors, and layouts throughout the application. This uniformity and consistency make the app more intuitive, visually appealing, and user-friendly. 

4. Accessibility: An inclusive UI design delivers high Accessibility. This means your application is highly accessible with developer's guidelines like high-contrast color schemes, and text alternatives for images. This also ensures that your app can easily be navigated through screen readers or keyboard shortcuts.

What are the best UI design practices?

1. User-specific design: Try to create user-centric designs. For creating user-specific designs, you need to conduct thorough market research and identify user preferences, demands, and pain points. Use this data while making the design of your app. It helps to make your app more user-friendly. 

2. Mobile-first approach: With the massive demands of mobile devices, it's important to leverage the mobile-first app design approach. Try to make the UI responsive, this means it will deliver the same experience in different screen sizes, devices, and operating systems. 

3. Prototyping: Before proceeding to the development phase, creating a design prototype essential for every app-making project. Professional designers suggest using different tools like Figma, Adobe XD, and Sketch to create prototypes. 

4. Performance optimization: If a visually appealing app doesn't perform well then it has no value. Therefore, optimizing the performance of your app is essential. This can be done by reducing the consumption of heavy graphics. Ensure the app smoothly runs and quickly loads on all devices. 

How much does it cost to design an app?

The average app UI design cost usually ranges from $3,000 to $30,000. Just like Android or iOS application development, app design costs also depend on several factors including complexity levels, design team types, designer's locations, and hourly rates. Let's have a brief look at these factors. 

1. Complexity levels:

Project complexity levels play an important role in determining the app design costs. Visuals, animations, and graphics are some of the important parameters that should be considered for design cost estimation. For instance, the cost of a basic app with simple animation will be less than the cost of designing an app with high-end graphics and visual elements. 

2. Types of app design team

The total cost also varies depending on what type of team of designers you select for your project. For instance, a team of in-house designers will be the most expensive option than hiring the best custom application development company or freelancers. Here is a checklist that will help you understand how design cost differs with designer team types. 

• Cost of hiring freelancers: $6000
• Cost of outsourcing agency: $12,000
• Cost of in-house designing team: $36,000
• Cost of hiring a local app design company: $48,000

3. Designer's locations

Just like other factors, the locations of designing teams also determine the overall cost of mobile app design. This means the cost of hiring designers in the UK or US is higher than the design app cost in India. Here is a concise breakdown of location-wise app design costs.

Final words

The art of mobile user interface design lies in developing a proper balance between core app functionalities and aesthetics. By adhering to the best design principles and practices, custom application developers and designers can sophistically craft UIs that deliver top-notch user experience with high functionality. As app design is a long process and involves a number of steps, you have to consider the above-mentioned factors to accurately estimate costs. This will help you stay within your app development budget.