It can be a disaster

Let’s say you’re window shopping on Main Street. One of the shop windows attracts your attention and you decide to walk in. You enter a reception room and in front of you sits a person behind bullet-proof glass. There aren’t any products on display, nor any information about the shop’s products. 

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I recently returned from a business trip in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

I was amazed how people are in love with Uber and how it changed their daily habits.

In Manila, the people I met with came smiling to our meetings and one of the first things they said was that they’ve just used Uber.

​(They actually use uberX and call it Uber)

Why were they so happy?

• A new transportation option – without uberX they wouldn’t consider using a taxi
• Quality – far better than local taxis at a fair price
• Most importantly: Usability – Uber is a click away anywhere in the city at any time

​That’s why it’s great- it’s a whole new offering

In Hong Kong, I used Google Maps to navigate my way by train and foot and whenever needed, Google suggested completing the trip with Uber in a click.

I also found out I could get a chopper! I would definitely get one on my next family trip (although it seems to be taken off the service in Hong Kong).
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Mobile applications are at the core of most internet strategies. Internet, SaaS and e-Commerce businesses depend on mobile apps to reach their business goals, whether they are constantly looking to increase retention rates, reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC) and increase monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and lifetime value (LTV).

Standard and Innovative
Three simple rules will let you stay on top of your app users and focus on optimizing your business goals. We believe an innovative user experience approach tightly combined with standard and common user flow would work best.

Put yourself in the place of your users. When are they using your application? Are they doing other things at the same time? Are they at home, school or walking in the street? Are their hands free? Are they holding and operating other objects?

I can think about myself taking the train to work. In one hand holding the handle and with my other hand the smartphone trying to check at what time I will reach my destination or quickly cleaning my email inbox.

There are many other examples involving a quick look and action: account balance, money transfer, like, share, accept and reject, find movie or TV series and watch.

This is quite different than designing, developing and testing the application in your office while sitting at a desk.

Now, envision your app on the smartphone while holding the device in one hand. Does it work? Are all major actions within finger reach? Can the user complete the actions that are important for you to achieve your business goals?

Mobile Phone Interaction
According to recent usability studies, most people are touching their screen only by using one hand:

​Want to be cool, redesign your app
Pie menu (or radial menu) provides users with a choice of three to eight options. Keep the menu as simple and clear as possible. It should offer relevant choices to the user at the point of decision and increase conversion rates.

Draw an invisible circle at the center – center bottom of the screen:

​Put the main actions around it:

​Fewer as possible options are better:

​Position in the center of the circle the entity to take an action on: person, post, location:

Now experiment and measure
You need to measure your application events, compare them to each previous design and then again and again until you’re satisfied. Are you getting more actions from your app? What is the most popular action? It is related to its location on the pie menu?

Improve: add/remove items from this dialogue and/or change the location of buttons, change the flow: dialogue always on, appears on context, appears on touch.

Notes
First, your app may not require the single hand approach. It may be a business application used to enter customer information while meeting a customer. In this case your app is fine.

Second, you may add another UI layer to your app. This will boost the experience of your app without changing the existing layout and functionality.

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