6. Use a list view for results, if order is important

Most mobile and web apps have some type of search and there can be some healthy design debates on how to display the results.

If order is important then a list view is most effective.

If order doesn’t matter and you would like to encourage discovery (like Pinterest or AirBnB) then a grid view will encourage a gaze pattern to support discovery.

7. Design in black and white first, add color later

Designing in black and white will keep the focus on solving and designing the core experience of your app.

Color evokes strong emotional responses and often interrupts our ability to focus on the core design problem.

8. Create comfortable design

Hand strain is a real issue, consider the graphic below from Luke Wroblewski’s amazing article: Responsive Navigation: Optimizing for Touch Across Devices.

Luke lays out the areas of a phone that are easiest to reach and use (at least for right handers) — I’d love to see apps have a setting where you can switch the interface from right hand dominant to left hand dominant.

Many effective mobile apps keep navigation and core actions in the bottom third of the phone.

Image Credit: Luke Wroblewski Responsive Navigation: Optimizing for Touch Across Devices

9. Borrow Color Palettes

Color is a bit of an elusive dark art. I highly recommend heading over to Dribbble and searching for “Color Palettes” or use a color palette generator like Coolors or Color Claim.

Save yourself the hours of endless debate and second guessing.

10. Use Apple and Google OS Conventions

Apple and Google have created incredible resources for anyone building software for Android or iOS.

For example, the Google Material spec has guidelines, resources, colors, icons and components to help jump start the design of your app.

Apple has the HIG — their Human Interface Guidelines, which outline everything you need to know on how to design an iOS app.