17/01/2024
The main focus of UX is to get the psychology right. According to research, to be able to do this, mobile applications should be addicting. This addiction can be achieved through psychology and state-of-the-art UX patterns.
For instance, Instagram immediately overtook Facebook in popularity because the founders of Instagram got the psychology right. Instagram was able to achieve this success by reducing the clutter and feature bloat of Facebook. Users always follow the path of least resistance. Meaning that an average application user would always find it more convenient to use apps that have easy functions and information architecture. By making Instagram simpler, direct and faster the path of least resistance becomes the default path.
Instagram has a UX pattern called “Autoplay” meaning if you do nothing, Instagram keeps loading new content. The path of least resistance - doing nothing - Leads to using Instagram more not less. This UX pattern is combined with the infinite scroll pattern. Meaning that whenever a user has had enough of watching a picture, he is just one downward swipe away from the next amazingly interesting image. This over time leads to higher app usage. I hope this is easy to understand because the highlight here is that UX is a critical part of any app’s success and user retention.