Mobile App navigation pattern matters. Especially to those users who use their smart devices to visit your website. As it is only when you give them a seamless browsing experience, they will explore the information you want to communicate to them.
There are numerous mobile app navigation patterns available. The ideal one allows consumers to find what they want quickly. Thus, it helps improve the interaction between the users and the app.
Navigation layouts for mobile apps vary. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. To develop an impactful business app, you need to pick the right pattern to help you achieve your goal.
To understand mobile app navigation designs and identify the ideal style for your app, keep reading this blog.
Mobile app navigation: what is it?
Mobile navigation refers to the elements of a mobile app that assist users in navigating between sections. In simple terms, it is the method through which users navigate the application from one point to another. It can be described as the app’s road network, which also creates the foundation of the robust app. Quick, simple, and supporting a seamless transition should be the ideal features of mobile navigation.
Challenges that designers may face while designing a mobile app
While designing the interface of a mobile app, designers have to face various challenges. Designing the navigation menu includes expanding navigation options, listing search results and adding scroll bars. When designers work on designing a mobile app interface, they have to deal with a smaller screen. The challenge here is to design navigation options accessible for the users. So, the designers must stay focused on making the buttons or icons discoverable.
What makes mobile navigation simple for your users?
The best practices for mobile navigation must be understood to create a user-centric mobile app. Knowing this will also assist you in choosing the appropriate navigation layout for your business app. Here are a few suggestions that you must look at to understand what we are attempting to explain.
It has to be intuitive:
Leading mobile app development company like Esolz Technologies always suggests that mobile navigation should be intuitive. To check the software’s usability, it is crucial to run through tree testing as well as card sorting tests. In short, the app must function properly and shouldn’t annoy users.
Give importance to hand positioning:
The optimal finger size should be considered while developing your mobile app’s buttons. Also, never forget about hand positioning. Therefore, think about creating appropriate buttons that offer excellent navigation for app users.
Content should be clear:
The content of your mobile app should be useful and clear enough to guide the users. Therefore, it has to be legible so that users never get confused or face any issues.
Maintain visual hierarchy:
To create a useful mobile app, you must adhere to minimalism while creating it. You can avoid unnecessary interface clutter by doing this as well. The content must maintain a clear hierarchy, so consider how close the elements are to one another. Also, leave sufficient space that will enhance the quality of the design.
Choose meaningful icons:
Another vital point that you must never ignore while designing your app’s interface is its icons. You must not develop your app’s icons in a way that makes it difficult for users to understand their actual purpose. Choose simple and easy designs for your buttons and icons that users are familiar with. This will help you save your users from unnecessary confusion and make navigation simpler.
Why is easy navigation important?
Designing a mobile app’s interface is certainly a crucial step as the success of your app depends on it. A user-friendly navigation pattern is always preferable for any leading app development services provider. After all, the goal of an app is to help you provide better services to your users and that’s not possible without easy navigation.
Take a look at the below points to see how you will benefit from an easy mobile app navigation pattern.
Users will enjoy exploring the app:
App users need a simple user interface to enjoy the facilities the app offers. An easy-to-use interface means hassle-free navigation. This will motivate the users to enjoy all the facilities of the app. The users need easy directions to use the app which thus why simple designs always work.
Ensures better app engagement:
Businesses try to meet their business goals using the mobile app. Therefore, user engagement is necessary for the app’s success. However, achieving success is impossible if users find complications while using it. As then users need to learn how to use an app from the beginning, which they might not prefer and uninstall the app or find an alternative.
Boosts conversion:
User-friendly apps are necessary to increase your purchases for your business. If users find difficulty handling the app, they will certainly not enjoy your services. With a simple mobile app navigation pattern, you can easily boost your conversion rate.
Some common navigational patterns for mobile apps
Your users will have a good navigation experience if every component of your app’s UI functions flawlessly. Here, we’ve highlighted a few different design patterns that can be created depending on how the elements are arranged.
Take a look, and you will understand how you should organize your app’s navigation pattern.
The Hamburger menu:
It is neatly located in the corner of the mobile app and features three little horizontal lines for better accessibility. It’s a useful pattern to hide elaborative navigation and offer more space to the users.
Although many designers have questioned its effectiveness, its structure demonstrates how helpful it is while not interfering with the overall feel of the design. It has grown in popularity because it includes comprehensive navigation between those exact 3 lines. Moreover, it helps the audience enjoy the rest of the screen space for problem-free navigation.
Top navigation menu:
Users can utilize both hands to use the navigation bar, present at the top of the screen. It also guarantees that users may navigate with the fastest possible mobile app speed. Because you don’t have to look all over, this pattern is simple in the user’s eyes. After all, you get everything on top for deeper exploration.
The ease of exploration is another important advantage of this navigation system. Consequently, you can shield your consumers from confusion related to unnecessary navigation.
Bottom navigation menu:
If you want to gather primary and secondary navigation links then you can count on the bottom navigation menu. Simply with the aid of thumbs the users can enjoy rapid scrolling. When using a smartphone, we tend to use our thumbs the most. Your thumb can be a great assistance in the bottom navigation. Thus You can get exactly where you want to be with a few taps without facing any difficulties.
Full-screen navigation:
It functions best for product sections that demand full-screen data. Again, full-screen navigation is also known as the “navigation hub”. Also, it was thoughtfully constructed using the visual hierarchy.
For users looking for comprehensive product features, it guarantees vital support. It is advantageous because users get everything on a single page right in front of them. Therefore, there is no need to put any extra effort into navigation.
Tab navigation:
It has rows with various alternatives, each of which opens a separate page of the app. Mainly, it shows up at the top of Android apps and the bottom of iOS apps.
Users can typically browse between different pages with the same context using tab navigation menus. Your Gmail account is a great example to understand tab navigation.
Sidebar navigation:
In case you need to add more categories, then sidebar navigation is the right choice for you. You can encourage people to investigate specific categories by using this pattern. After all, the buttons are given enough room to display correctly without detracting from the design’s aesthetic quality. This pattern can be used to its fullest extent if the icons are placed where the CTA is.
Grid navigation:
This design allows you to give your users a variety of options. The user must decide which one they want to check first. You must pay attention to the fonts and colour schemes in this navigation pattern as the users can simultaneously browse through several categories. Ensure that you are pushing your users to explore Users must be every option of these. Getting to the CTA is the most crucial step.
Gesture-based navigation:
Because of its usefulness, designers frequently adopt this design pattern. Users can swipe in whatever direction they like using this pattern.
Gesture-based navigation stands out from the rest since it is practical for a user to use. Users are already quite accustomed to this UI design style. Although more experimentation is necessary for further improvement.
Floating navigation button:
The floating icons are mainly circular-shaped. However, they do not float over the interface of the mobile app. The primary action on your mobile’s interface is mainly triggered by the Floating Action button. To move forward in the right direction, users need to click on the Floating Action Button.
Floating button icons can help you highlight the content of crucial layouts if you want to highlight the content. However, users of your software could become distracted by such buttons. It’s also possible that your users won’t even glance at your content. As a result, you cannot add floating buttons to each of your app’s pages. Most importantly, these buttons must not hurt your users’ minds.
Card navigation:
This pattern is the best choice when you need to display several interface elements, such as texts, photos, and other content, all at once. The best way to inform users about your app is through content. Additionally, it aids in their understanding of the app’s functionalities, which is important for improved navigation. Cards are ideal for presenting the content in this situation uniquely. In the end, it compiles different pieces of information in one spot. While seeking a responsive design pattern, card navigation is helpful. After all, these patterns are adaptable to screens of all sizes.
3D touch:
This particular pattern was first introduced to users by Apple. 3D touch is a wonderful way to offer options from the home screen as you can create a navigation shortcut. You can highlight the key actions for the selected app. It is also useful to provide a preview of the content required when dealing with a list of options for content.
However, giving access to the central features through 3D touch is not a great idea. That’s why you should stick to a simple pattern that makes navigation easy for the users without using the 3D pattern.
Some examples of great mobile app navigation pattern
Take a look at the following few examples to help you know more about some successful app navigation patterns.
Facebook:
It is a great example to show the power of combining different navigation styles. It’s a proper combination of the hamburger menu, top navigation and also bottom navigation.
Spotify:
This app is a good example of a useful mobile app navigation pattern. Card navigation on the app’s homepage helps the user discover content in the best way.
Telegram:
This app is also an example of how you can utilize hamburger menus to improve the navigation experience of your app. It has gained popularity for its treatment of users’ data and its simple UI design.
Conclusion
To a great extent App’s success depends on how the app is designed. Your business requires better leads and an improved conversion rate. That’s why to choose the navigation pattern of your app carefully keeping in mind your requirements. Also, knowing your target audience will certainly help you understand the specific features your app must have. Do consider the suggestions that we have shared here to design a user-friendly helpful business app.