Being the young and trendy team that we are, we are all regular users of apps. Apps to order food, apps to buy a train ticket, or apps to find a hot date (I won’t mention names), we are all, along with most of the rest of the population, reliant on these apps to provide us with a quick and easy service that we need at that moment.

Making these apps is no easy feat, delving into the human psyche to understand how people will interact with your product or service and designing it such a way they will do so easily, time and time again, is hard. Just that sentence made me a bit anxious, to be honest.

User experience (UX) design is the process of designing to enhance usability and overall experience pleasure. This means to design with the end-user in mind first in order to provide them with the most intuitive and easy experience.

Many businesses, who provide a service to the public, now rely almost or completely on their website and app to sell them. Ensuring the user is provided with the most pleasant and easy experience is of paramount importance to the success of a company.

We have taken a look at 5 apps we regularly use who have nailed their UX Design.

Trainline

Trainline is a tech company which provides a ticket booking platform for many train services in the United Kingdom and across Europe. Trainline is essentially a one-stop app that allows you to book train tickets, manage bookings and live track trains over a number of different service providers across the entire country.

First impressions when you open the app is a sense of ease and simplicity. The first screen you are greeted with is an easy to comprehend search screen. Not only is the information the app would like you to input very simple and intuitive but the way in which it is presented also provides a simple and relaxing feel. With an easy to read font, minimal use of colour and only icons or text there is no chance of you getting confused.

Booking a ticket is then just as easy, with both train and tickets options being presented in a simple and intuitive way. From searching for your route to booking your ticket can be less than a minute if you know what you’re looking for. You can be running up the platform for the train and booking the ticket at the same time.

Not only is buying a ticket like second nature but navigating around the rest of the app is just as easy. The navigation bar at the bottom of the screen allows easy navigation to all your tickets, your account, favourites and back to the search screen.

All in all, we basically love using the Trainline app and if there is anyone a train journey away in need of a new website let us know – any excuse to use the app!
 

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Airbnb

I’m sure you have probably heard of Airbnb but in case you haven’t, allow me to explain. Airbnb is a global brand which allows people to rent out rooms, flats, entire homes or basically anything with a bed and loo. With 5 million lodging options across 81,000 cities, and it being worth an estimated $31 billion, Airbnb has taken over the global travel industry.

At Angle, we are all regular users of Airbnb using it as the first port of call for any trip or holiday (now we are on the subject, we will be staying in an Airbnb when we exhibit at the B2B Marketing Expo at ExCel, London on the 27th and 28th March – stand 1652…). Not only are the homes available amazing and very reasonably priced but finding them could not be easier.

First things first, Airbnb’s app has nailed the principle of simplicity. Upon opening the app there is plenty of white space to help enhance the bold imagery of their home and experiences as well as CTA’s (which are either blue, coral or purple depending on the action).

In terms of the user journey, Airbnb has ensured they provide the easiest and most intuitive journey. Upon opening the app the first screen you’re greeted with provides an obvious search bar with two filters (travel dates and number of guests) and the question “What can we help you find?”. Right from the first screen, you are already able to easily search for exactly where you want to go whether that be for experience or a home.

If you haven’t decided quite where you want to go just yet then fear not, Airbnb has you covered. The front page also provides plenty of inspiration for things to do and places to stay around the world – from treehouses in Bali to seeing the northern lights in Norway, Airbnb has it all. The front screen is broken into “homes around the world”, “top-rated experiences”, “featured destinations” and much more, once you start scrolling through you won’t be able to stop and soon enough will be planning your next holiday – and yes I am talking from experience, this blog has taken me far longer to write than I care to admit.

Once you are decided on the experience or home you fancy booking then the experience doesn’t waver from there. You can have your next adventure booked in a matter of minutes with an easy to use availability calendar. The calendar very clearly highlights the available days and even the price for that day so there are no surprises at the checkout.

Beyond booking homes or experiences, navigating around the app is just as clear. The navigation bar at the bottom provides an easy way to view saved home and experiences, view booked trips and view your own profile.

Uber

The only way to make it home after a night out – Uber. The new revolutionary way of booking a taxi is here and it is excelling. No more phoning up and waiting 30 minutes or standing getting cold in a queue – simply tap away on your phone and hey presto your car is there in minutes.

There is nothing really complicated about Uber at all. Upon opening the app you are greeted with a map of your location with the Uber cars near you visible and a search box with the words “where to?”. Simply tap in where you want to go, select Uber, UberX or Pool and tap request Uber, as soon as a driver accepts your journey you will be able to see where they are and how long until they are with you.

Uber really is just that simple, there is a reason 15 million trips are completed a day worldwide.

Conclusion

These apps have become part of our lives, they are who we are and there is a reason for that. They provide us with a service we never knew we needed but now can’t live without and they make it so easy. There isn’t much left that isn’t accessible in a few minutes and a couple of taps on an app.

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