The number of wellness apps available is on the rise, and it’s not stopping anytime soon. With so much competition in the market, your app needs to be in tip-top shape in order to not just compete but stand out. One way to do that is by making sure it’s well designed – but what does that mean?

We’ve spoken to our Design Team to find out the main and most important design considerations they take into account when building a healthy lifestyle app.

1. Purpose

The purpose of your app is hands down the number one point that you must consider. Before you go down the app design road, you must understand the problem your app is trying to solve and its main focus – whether it’s to help your users keep up with their fitness regime or keep anxiety at bay.

Simply put: If your app doesn’t fulfil a need that your users currently have, it will never be successful regardless of how much time and effort you put into its design.

2. Functionality

This may sound obvious, but to design a successful wellness app, you need to make sure that it achieves its purpose flawlessly. From the transition between daily workout routines to the distance between navigation buttons and the thumb – yes, that’s how detailed our designers are when it comes to designing an app.

3. User Experience

A user-centric app is a good app. That means you must understand what your users are expecting to get out of your app, how they will use your app, and how your app will meet their needs.

Your app may be digital, but the user experience is 100% physical. So it’s important to put yourself in your users’ shoes and design your app to alleviate any real-life obstacle. For example, we anticipated that Drew & Cole users would have their fingers dirty when following recipes on the app, so we added a knuckle-based screen tap so they could interact with it without getting food on their screen.

Don’t forget: As your customers use your app, they’re feeding back data regarding their user habits, so remember to analyse this data and use it to improve the app design. In addition, you should also listen to what your users are saying about your app design, and cater to their wants and needs.

4. Simplicity

No one likes endlessly scrolling through text and images to find the information they need. To deliver optimum user experience, your app needs to be simple and quick, so knowing when and where to show a specific piece of content is paramount.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You should stick to button icons that are easily recognisable. Combining concise content with easily identifiable steps will allow users to do what they need to do in as little time as possible.

5. Sustainability

A gradient-filled app may look trendy, but it could be a bad idea if you want your app to stand the test of time. When it comes to creating a sustainable app design, it’s important to strike a balance between aesthetics and usability.

When it comes down to it, it may be better to have a more classic, moderately stylish design that offers a smooth user experience than a highly stylised app that crashes every five seconds when a user is trying to follow an exercise video.

6. Consistency

Just like the design on your website, your app needs to have the same feel throughout. This is important for several reasons: It ensures that each button looks and acts the same on every screen, it makes your app look polished and professional, and it establishes an interface pattern that enables users to recognise similar elements on different screens.

Without consistency, users will get frustrated and annoyed – and there’s nothing healthy about that!

7. Platform Guidelines

Icons, typefaces, and functional elements (such as input fields on a fitness tracker and boxes on a workout checklist) that work for iOS may not work for Android or Windows, so don’t start designing an app without checking the mobile platform guidelines. Each OS has its own guidelines, and your app needs to meet them all if you want users on any device to be able to experience your app.

Need a wellness app?

If your business needs a mobile app that will catch attention and change lives for the better, speak to one of our team members. Get in touch via hello@digitalworkroom.co.uk