One can play games from anywhere using their mobile devices. However, some creative minds found a unique way of combining gaming with all the applications. The term is gamification!

With gamification, businesses unlock higher user engagement and revenue.

So, what is it all about? What do the market research reports say about gamification in apps? And in what ways can you implement the same?

Let us uncover all these important questions associated with the gamification of apps.

The Concept Of Gamification In Apps

Gamification is the use of gaming elements in multiple contexts of application to enhance the user experience and engagement. The technique is now used in a variety of fields, including operations, education, finance, social media, and more. Although gamification does not fall completely into the gaming zone, it is remarkably close to it. With the gamification of apps, companies’ goal is to enhance users’ motivation to use the application more.

Research Insights Associated With App Gamification

There are several studies focused on app gamification to study whether businesses and users enjoy it or not. Here are some insights.

• Smoking cessation apps are on the rise, but to improve the user experience, these apps are implementing gamification strategies. According to research published by the National Library of Medicine, smoking cessation apps in the UK are applying features like trackers and calculators. Nearly 85% of such apps have integrated gamification.
• Further, stress management apps are also applying gamification. A study published in JMIR publications, 62 of stress management applications. And, you will find it interesting that only 8 of the applications were not using gamification techniques. All other 54 apps have some form of gamification included in them.

Planning to build a stress management app?

Read our Mental Healthcare app development guide

• Additionally, the eCommerce industry is not behind in applying gamification. It is confirmed through research that gamification strategies confirm intrinsic motivation for buyers, amplifying the buying experience.
• Finally, the e-learning sector is actively applying gamification strategies to apps. In a research, 98% of responses are positive from participants towards gamification.

Why Is App Gamification An Effective Strategy For Businesses?

So, why is gamification hyped? Well, there are a few additional benefits that the gamification of apps delivers to businesses. Here are they:

• Generate organic installs: When gamification is present in your application and you showcase it on respective app stores, users tend to install your application. Of course, gaming ads attract users.
• Driving gear: Businesses implementing gamification can incentivize users to stay engaged in the app. This in turn impacts the retention rate, generating higher revenue for your business.
• User creativity: With gamification, users can unlock their creativity, giving you a few rare insights about your users. You can deliver better personalization to your users.

All the above-mentioned pointers are no doubt crucial for every business. And, when you, as a business, get this, you will surely opt for it. This is the reason why gamification is in hype and is being adopted by more and more businesses with mobile applications.

Top App Gamification Strategies That You Can Add to Your Application

So, we are at the important section of this article now. Now that you have evidence about the popularity of gamification, how about you explore some gamification ideas yourself?

1. Points: Rewarding users for completing tasks
2. Badges: Upon receiving a certain number of points, offer users a badge for their efforts to recognize their efforts.
3. Leaderboards: Adding competitive elements and encouraging users to continue engaging with your application.
4. Progress bars: Showcasing live progress bars to let users see how far they are from recognitions and rewards.
5. Rewards: offering goodies to users for achievements.
6. Compare Progress: Allowing users to compare their progress with the leaders.
7. Social connectivity: Promoting engagement through social media integration.
8. Unlocking challenges: Amplifying gamification through unlocking new challenges for users.
9. Story/Theme: Designing a narrative story or a theme for users.
10. Avatars: Modifiable avatars as the users level up in the app.
11. Mini-games: In-app mini-games improve user experience.

If you find any or some of the ideas helpful, you can start planning your app gamification strategies to gamify your application. However, it is important to note that your app platform can alter your app gamification process.

For example, in iOS, the development process is different as compared to Android app development hence, keep in mind to contact the right development partner.

Measuring and Analyzing Effectiveness of App Gamification Strategies

But how can you use outputs from gamification strategies for your business? Well, there are a couple of metrics you can focus on while measuring and analyzing the effectiveness of gamification strategies.

• User engagement: Analyzing session times, event conversion rates, and related metrics.
• Completion rates: Identifying completion rates from users.
• User retention: Measuring how successful is one of the gamification strategies.

When you organize the above-mentioned fields systematically, you will unlock the required analysis to find out the success of your gamification strategies. This will also help you build new gamification strategies for your app.

App Gamification Examples From The Leading Industries

Let us present you with some examples from the leading applications that have successfully implemented app gamification strategies.

Sports & Fitness Industry

As Sports app development grows, businesses are implementing new ways to gamify their apps. One of the examples is the Nike Run Club. It has adopted gamification like milestone unlocks and registered a 45% growth rate.

Social Media Industry

More than 80% of smartphone users are active on Social media in some form. And, to keep them engaged, apps have redesigned their social media app development strategies to adopt gamification. For example, Snapchat’s streak feature is engaging users to send a snap daily to their friends else the game of streak ends.

Elearning Industry

With more and more businesses stepping into eLearning app development, gamification has become a major basic requirement. To amplify the learning process, apps like Duolingo, Khan Academy, and Codecademy Go have implemented badges, progress dashboards, points, and more app gamification strategies.

Fintech Industry

Mobile banking has become a trend and since smartphones are in everybody’s hands, the need to visit banks has exponentially decreased. With new fintech app development ideas, mobile apps have also brought innovations in the gamification of fund savings. Apps like Smartypig are motivating users by using a progress display bar to add funds and reach their targets.

The above applications are from well-known companies, and as an entrepreneur, you can analyze their gamification strategies to build your successful strategy. However, to implement a successful strategy, you should build it right. And hiring dedicated app developers for gamification can help you achieve the required success.

Key Areas To Focus While Building Your App Gamification Strategy

Before moving to the end sections of this in-depth app gamification strategies guide, we want to lay down a few key areas that you should not ignore while building your strategy.

• Freedom of choice: Allow users to act voluntarily, i.e., have the freedom to deactivate and activate gamification.
• Benefits and Meanings: Influence must be relevant to creators and users to motivate them.
• Personalized experience: Do not impose the same gamification techniques on all the users; rather, focus on personalization.
• Long-term interaction: Let users engage with your application for a long term if they wish to.

How Much Does It Cost To Gamify An App?

Gamification of applications requires good concentration on the development part. The cost part depends on your requirements, i.e., how many elements of gamification you want to integrate into your application.

For a rough estimate, a simple gamified e-learning mobile application could cost you $30,000 to $60,000. And as you increase the complexity, you will demand more resources and efforts from your digital transformation agency.

The post App Gamification Strategies To Boost User Experience appeared first on RipenApps Official Blog For Mobile App Design & Development.

Currently, there are over seven million mobile apps available across Android, iOS, and other platforms. Out of the global population of 8 billion, 6.92 billion people use smartphones or mobile devices.

So, it seems alluring for businesses to launch their mobile apps to make progress in the business. But the fact is despite such a huge number of apps, only 0.5% of consumer mobile apps succeed. Yes, read it right, only 0.5% of apps succeed. Rest apps struggle a lot to perform nicely and stand out in the market.

And one of the main reasons that hinder a mobile app’s performance and achieve success is the mobile app user experience. Most app owners and creators often have the misconception that users mostly care for exciting or useful features. The reality, however, is quite different.

According to a market report, 52% of customers say a bad mobile experience makes them decrease faith in a company. 70% of customers abandon shopping carts due to poor UX.

So, mobile app user experience or mobile UX plays an influential or decisive role in determining the company’s success. If you also have a mobile app for your business or company. Then, you must ensure your app offers best-in-class UX to achieve better results. And to assist with this, here we have shared some of the best practices to improve the mobile app user experience.

What is Mobile App User Experience?

Mobile app user experience or Mobile app UX is the end-to-end experience of a user while interacting with the app. It involves how the user feels while using a mobile application. Mobile app UX is primarily concerned with the holistic journey throughout the mobile application. It includes touchpoints, buttons, navigation, UI/UX design, performance, speed, and key factors associated with the app.

Why Does Good Mobile App UX Matter for Businesses?

Mobile app user experience has a direct impact on app performance as well as brand reputation score. Modern users are very impatient and fastidious. They expect everything flawless and seamless while using a mobile application.

Mobile app UX is a significant part of customer experience. No matter what features or solutions your app offers. If your app fails to engage users and perform nicely, it won’t drive positive business outcomes. Therefore, mobile apps help businesses to attain and retain users and generate business revenue.

Mobile app user experience plays a very influential role in determining the success of mobile apps.  According to market statistics, users spend almost 90% of their mobile usage time using apps.  Every $1 invested in UX results in a return of $100, which is 9,900% ROI.

Hence, it becomes critical for businesses and companies to invest in providing a good mobile app user experience. Investing in mobile app UX can enable app owners to satisfy users. And build better trustability and customer loyalty. Here are the benefits of a good mobile app user experience-

• Increased customer satisfaction
• Competitive Advantage
• Enhanced User Engagement
• Improved Conversion Rates
• Effective Brand Perception and Loyalty
• Better User Retention

Best Practices for Improving Mobile App User Experience

A good mobile app user experience involves various things. While developing or designing your mobile app, you should incorporate suitable techniques and UI considerations. Here, we have shared some of the best practices that could assist you in enhancing your mobile app experience.

1. Create a User-Friendly App Design

Mobile app design is one of the most important aspects of quality mobile app UX. How much your app design is user-friendly will make a good impact on users. There are many factors in app design that contribute to the delivery of a high-quality mobile app experience. For instance, a user-friendly app design has

1. Intuitive Navigation
2. Data Privacy and Security
3. Personalization
4. Simple and Clean Interface
5. Consistent and Familiar Patterns
6. Responsive and Adaptive Design
7. Easy Readability and Accessibility
8. Effective Use of Color and Visual Hierarchy
9. User Feedback and Iterative Improvement

All these are vital characteristics of a user-friendly mobile app design. This, as a result, helps in satisfying users’ expectations. And also in delivering an effective mobile app user experience. You should also check whether your current mobile app design meets the latest standards. If your current app doesn’t involve modern design elements. Then, there are many reasons why you should consider app redesign.

2. Incorporate Native Components in the Mobile App

Users are mostly familiar with native mobile app experience. They are habitual and aware of the native app user journey and its flow. Therefore, Whether it is Android or iOS, your mobile app should incorporate native UI components. It will make it easier for users to use the app. As a result, it will save time in following the steps and in-app navigation.

However, this doesn’t mean you are restricted to creativity or innovation. To add a unique element while giving a native-app-like feel, you can add transitions, animation, motion graphics, etc. Or other innovative things to make your mobile app UX special and impactful.

3. Leverage Material Design to Ensure Consistency in Android Apps

Android has high device fragmentation. It has over 28,000 different devices with different screen sizes and features. As a result, it becomes difficult to ensure consistent user experience across all Android mobile devices. Android users always look for a fast and intuitive app experience. So, it becomes crucial for Android apps to provide a consistent and intuitive UX on every platform.

For this, you can leverage material design in your Android app to make it more user-friendly. Material Design is a set of design guidelines and principles. It helps UI/UX designers and developers create a clean, modernistic, and responsive user experience. It primarily focuses on designing a visually consistent. And also create an intuitive app interface across different platforms and device inconsistencies. It would be better to take assistance from an Android app development company. They will help you effectively use this feature in your Android app.

4. Easy Onboarding

Even if your app has a million downloads, there is still a chance of instant uninstallation by users. Why? It is due to not having easy onboarding. When users first enter the app they want a fast and smooth onboarding experience. If your app is complex and difficult to understand, it may lead to app uninstallation right after download.

Hence, it is essential to provide an easier and smoother onboarding experience. To make onboarding easier, you should provide users with basic instructions or quick app usage tutorials. However, you should also not give too much information. It is because this will draw away users from meaningful UX. Try to give a brief tutorial or overview and leave some space for later.

5. Keep In-App Navigation Simple

Navigation is one of the top factors of quality mobile app user experience. It determines the user journey and how users feel going throughout the app. To offer a seamless mobile app user experience, you should focus on involving simple in-app navigation. Don’t confuse users by creating complicated or time-consuming navigation bars. You should try to keep your in-app navigation simple and easy to understand. As a result, it will help in providing a seamless user journey and ultimately good UX.

6. Be Concise

Mobile screens are completely different from desktop or tablet screens. They are much smaller in size. So, it makes it difficult for users to see information on a small screen. Therefore, you should focus on being concise while giving information in your mobile app. You should present information only that is important for users. Don’t fill everything onto the first or any screen. Leave some white space for user concentration. It will allow users to get smoother interactivity with your mobile app.

7. Include Animated Transitions

Animated transitions are among the best UI/UX design practices. It is to create a smoother in-app user flow while moving from one page to another. Animated transitions provide animated effects during the in-app journey when the user completes an action. It is one of the best practices to engage users and motivate them in their actions.

Therefore, incorporating animated transitions in your app can help you offer engaging mobile app UX. For implementing animated transitions, your developers or designers should focus on making it meaningful rather than visually attractive. It’s okay to have one or two animated transitions in the app. Don’t overload the app with extra animations.While subtle animations are best for transitions, consider using text animation to highlight key information or success messages during micro-interactions.

8. Add a Human-Touch In Your Mobile App User Experience

Users are humans. They like when a mobile app gives a personalized and interactive app usage experience. Your mobile app must be designed keeping the user’s behavior and interest in mind. Therefore, you should add a human touch to your mobile app design, features, navigation, and other aspects.

Try to give a personalized app usage experience that gives value to every user. For instance, you can offer real-time feedback or a chat facility for quick customer service. Or you can make appealing app designs to amplify the user experience.

Wrapping Up

Good mobile app user experience is the decisive factor of your app’s success. Today, when user experience is becoming the top of business growth strategies. Improving your mobile app user experience can enable you to succeed in the current competitive market. Incorporating the above-mentioned practices can help you deliver a best-in-class mobile app user experience.

And thus, you can achieve better business outcomes and ROI from your mobile app. And RipenApps is a top mobile app development company that has delivered some of the industry’s highly successful and trending apps. Our team is aware of the latest UI/UX design and development practices. We enable you to take advantage of the latest mobile app UX trends and help your business achieve significant results.

The post How To Improve Your Mobile App User Experience? appeared first on RipenApps Official Blog For Mobile App Design & Development.