As an occasional app downloader and user, I do my fair share of browsing on the iOS App stores to see what’s new in the mobile app domain. When the home screen of the app opens, I am lost for a few seconds, looking at the tiny, visually appealing scrolls of mobile app icons.
Even in the state of daze, a quick glance at the interesting iconography is enough to recognize what the apps stand for, identify the ones that I need and also explore the apps which I find enticing! In other words, these mobile apps successfully nailed their first attempt to create intrigue and increase the user base.
This brings me to the question are icons important for the success of mobile app?
In the current mobile apps-dominated era, brands and businesses are pressured severely to compete against one another to increase app downloads and user engagement. Statistical data from a mobile app usage survey reveals that almost 21 percent of millennial open any app more than 50 times a day! And over 25 percent of these respondents said they would delete an app to clear out congestion in their device storage.
Moreover, factors like poor attention span of the mobile audience and wide array of choices available on the App Store and Play Store leave too little opportunity for brands to create a memorable impact.
An icon is an important component in the success of a brand’s mobile strategy that communicates the brand message and represents the app’s service. Mobile app icons carry less code weight and require too much creativity to attract a potential user and ensure the app is recognizable and eye-catching.
In most cases, brands and businesses like Google, Facebook and many other banking apps stick to their original logos as icon designs for the mobile apps. But this works only with the brands that are well-known. As for new or upcoming mobile apps, the developers should strategically design and select unique patterns with succinct taglines without cramming the icon with too much text or color.
The predominant role of the icon is to create great first impressions and make it last longer with the use of creatives that sum up the functionality, features, and specifications of the apps. Secondly, the icons also play a useful part in making the mobile app recognizable and relevant on every online platform to give a boost to the brand’s popularity for building a diverse user base. From a customer’s standpoint, an interesting mobile app icon that fits into their systems and devices will make the app more accessible to facilitate their needs anywhere across the world.
With so much importance and indispensability weighing on the icon in the success, mobile app developers cannot afford to ignore the latest designing trends and guidelines set by Google. Below are some of the pointers that are worth considering by the mobile app developers and businesses while choosing a befitting app icon:
Visual Clarity: The users’ decision to explore an app is based on the first impression the icon creates. Besides selecting unique designs and catchy taglines, icons should have visually appealing colors that do not disturb the eyes and have visual clarity to make sure it does not get overlooked in the App store. That includes balancing the tones, tints, hues, uses of shapes, polygons, and saturation of the app icons and icons of action buttons for better UI/UX. Of late, the use of 3D graphics with polygons, overlapping techniques, gradients, and dual imagery for icons and logo designs are on the rise.
Sizing and Scaling Ratio: The size of icons also varies on different screens. To make sure that the design or image on the icons is visible in all screen settings and backgrounds, it is necessary to run a fitting test or stick to the standard scaling ratio according to Android iconography and Apple’s sizing formats.
Designing Cost: Very often the designing cost governs the quality of the mobile app icon. Creating an app entails significant efforts for icon design, prototyping and following the standard eight U/X design techniques.
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