app development Archives

February 9, 2021March 25, 2021

Here’s how you can build the next Uber-like App!

Here’s everything potential on-demand businesses need to know to develop an app like Uber!

Taxi apps are just snowballing everywhere. There was a time when Uber was the only online taxi provider company in the market. But if we look at the present-day situation, so many small and medium scaled online taxi provider companies have been introduced in the market. New apps have sprung up to enrich people’s experience of boarding taxis online. However, out of the lot, Uber still manages to show incredible success.

According to Statista, Uber’s global presence has increased extensively over the last three years. The total value of Uber bookings has more than tripled since late 2016, reaching over 40.7 billion U.S. dollars in the first nine months of 2020.

Table of Content:

How does the Uber app work?
How many apps are involved?
Passenger features in apps like Uber
Driver features in apps like Uber
Admin Panel for taxi booking apps like Uber
What technologies are used to develop an app like Uber?
How much does building an app like Uber costs?

In the peer-to-peer ride-hailing market, Uber is in charge of 77% of the business. Many of its competitors have tried to pit against but Uber still manages to reign. How? In this blog, you will figure out exactly what makes an app like Uber stand out from others in the market and how even you can benefit from the Uber business model. Remember that the core objective is not to create an Uber knock-off, but rather a more advanced web & mobile app.

How Does the Uber App Work?

Before getting into the technical aspects of how to create an app like Uber, let’s first briefly review how the app works and what are its core features.

If anything that makes Uber the sole winner in the market, it’s the way the app operates. If you have ever used the Uber app (which we’re pretty sure you have) you’ll know that it takes only a few simple steps on the app to get to your desired location. The app keeps the process far efficient and plain sail. That is why if you want to develop an app like Uber, you need to first understand what these steps are:

Step 1: Ride request

The customer creates a trip request to their desired destination. They check the fare of the trip and choose between various car types.

Step 2: Trip verification

The request is then sent to a nearby driver whoever will be able to pick up the customer as quickly as possible. The driver can either accept or reject the ride. If one rejects, the request is quickly sent to another driver. Each other’s contact details are shared with both parties.

Step 3: The ride

Once the contact details are shared, the customer tracks the taxi approach and can see the estimated time of arrival.

Step 4: Payment

The app gives you an exact estimation of the ride cost beforehand which makes the process even easy and smooth. The process by which the Uber app calculates the trip fee is through time and distance indicators.

Step 5: Rating and Review

Once the ride is complete, the app requests you to rate each ride. This may help future riders pick drivers accordingly.

How many apps are involved?

Contrary to what most cab-hailing app owners assume, Uber is not a single app but a company that runs three distinct apps. The original platform comprises a Driver App designed for the drivers collaborating with the company and a Passenger App meant for ordinary customers who book their ride. Apart from that, the platform should also come with an admin panel that is responsible for managing and monitoring the platform’s work.

If you want to make an app like Uber (or a similar taxi booking app), it is crucial to understand these three major components that make up this whole system. Let’s understand the basic features of each of these applications in detail.

Also Read: From Idea to Product: A comprehensive guide to the product design process

Passenger Features in Apps Like Uber

Registration – The user is asked to log in or sign up as soon as they download and open the app. This can be possible via email, social media, or phone number for verification.
Taxi Booking – This feature allows users to enter their address, select the type of car, and adjust the pickup location.
Fare Calculator – As mentioned above, the fare for traveling from one point to the other is already calculated based on the distance, the car-type, and estimated traffic. The price is shown to the customer beforehand.
Driver Tracking – The driver’s movements are tracked in real-time and timely updates on travel routes and estimated time of arrival are sent to the customer.
Texting or Calling the Driver – As soon as a driver is allotted, their contact and vehicle details are sent to the specific customer. The customers can then easily contact the driver to stay up-to-date with the trip-request status.
Travel History – Provides a track of record of the driver’s past rides and transactions.
Payment – Various payment methods including credit and debit cards, PayPal, gift cards, or simply in-cash can be implemented through the app. Once the ride ends, the selected payment method is charged.
Rating & Review – The customer can provide ratings based on the journey, driver’s behavior, and the overall experience.
Customer Support

Following are some advanced features that can be included in a subsequent version of an Uber-like app:

Ride Cancellation – Allows users to cancel the ride within a specific period.
Split Payment – Riders can opt for sharing a ride with other passengers and split the payment.
Book for Others – This feature lets a user book a taxi for someone else.
Share My Trip – With this feature, one can share their trip details with contact.

Driver Features in Apps Like Uber

Driver Verification – This gives the complete information of the driver including his verification, license, documents, etc. This feature is also used to check the driver’s availability.
Trip Alert – This notifies the driver when a new trip request is placed including the passenger’s location, route, and travel history. The driver has the ability to accept or decline the request.
Push Notifications – These are used to notify any change in route, pick up location, or request status.
Navigation & Route Optimization – Shows the best and fastest trip route with the integration of Google and Apple Maps.
Revenue Reports – Provides information about the driver’s trips and earnings, allowing them to look up statistics on daily or monthly earnings.
Texting or Calling the Passenger – Allows direct communication between the driver and the passenger within the app.

Apart from the above mentioned basic features, an Uber-like app can also have some of the following advanced features:

Driver Destinations – the ability of a driver to select a ride only with a preferred destination.
Quest Earnings – the ability of a driver to earn more for completing a predefined number of trips.
Waiting Time – the app charges extra to the passenger in the event of trip cancellation or exceeding the wait time of 5 minutes.
Forward Dispatch – allows the driver to accept another trip request while performing the current ride.

Admin Panel for Taxi Booking Apps Like Uber

The Admin Panel works as a Fairy Godmother to the whole system making sure every component is organized and is under control at the driver’s as well as the customer’s side. It is a control panel for admins to manage customers, drivers, requests, payments, and everything else that comes in-between to function an app like Uber.

Hence, the admin panel must include some high-level set of features including:

Managing the locations & fares charged;
Managing the User & Driver accounts;
Taxi Booking Management;
Reviewing the ratings;
Push notification management;
Promotion and discounts;
Customer and Driver support;
Integration with multiple analytics tools (like Google Analytics) Integration with Google Analytics

What Technologies are Used to Develop an App Like Uber?

In this part of the blog, we’re going to discuss the technical aspects of building an app like Uber. What are the key technologies that can play a pivotal role in the development of your Uber-like app? What are the technical integrations that you might need during the taxi app development?

The most important technology that is used in any taxi booking app is Geolocation. Other key features include push notifications, integration of payment gateways, and route building.

Below is an overview of all technological integration with the time (in hours) taken to develop the following in-app services:

Technologies used to build an App Like Uber

Besides the above technological integrations, the development also requires you to implement other technology and programming languages for both iOS and Android app development. Most taxi app developers would apply Swift and Kotlin programming languages for iOS and Android apps evenly. As for the system’s backend, some of the top taxi app developers highly commend the Ruby-on-Rails framework.

How much does building an app like Uber costs?

Now that you have a perfect idea of how you can develop an app like Uber, you may ask “How much does it cost to make an app like Uber?”. The cost to make an app like Uber can be expensive if you consider an in-house team to build it. Therefore, we strongly recommend you to go for a mobile app development company that understands the rhythm of the market and avail the best methodologies to develop apps.

According to BuildFire, hiring an offshore development company could cost you as low as $25 per hour. To give you an overview here is the average hourly cost of skilled developers in the top three major countries:

USA: $150-120/hr
UAE: $90- 150/hr
India: $25-49/hr

Hiring a mobile app development company can help you deploy the latest technologies and the best of features to your taxi app development.

To Conclude

One thing is for sure, to develop an app like Uber is indeed a considerable and profitable idea. Keep in mind that apart from using your app to book a taxi, your audience also demands a sleek user interface and a smooth experience. Hence, you need to pick and customize your app structure suiting those needs – and at the same time, your budget. We’ll be glad to help you decide how to create an app like Uber and launch it in the market with minimal time and financial resources. Write to us at [email protected].

December 17, 2020March 25, 2021

How to turn your app idea into reality?

Cheers! You have a great app idea but how to turn your app idea into reality?

With the app economy booming, this is the best time to transition your vision for an app into a full-fledged reality. The user base is growing so is the spending on mobile apps.

This provides a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and enterprises to nudge into the greatest mobile trend of all times!

But it isn’t as easy as it looks. Once you’re at it, you might find yourself mystified in the process. What should you do? How to get from A to B or B to C? Where to start from?

You’re not the only one asking these questions. Often it’s hard to know where to start from, especially if this is your first time making an app. At Spark Eighteen, we master in providing you solutions to these problems. Here is a step-by-step guide that can help you on how to turn your app idea into reality:

Don’t stop researching!

There is already a surfeit of poorly planned apps that fail within weeks because they do not research well. You would not want to imagine your app among these!

Once you have your basic idea at hand, the very next step is to check if the idea in itself is viable. Below are some of the questions you need answers to:

What are the problems that you’re solving through your app?

If there isn’t any problem for which your app is the solution, your product will basically remain non-existent.

Is there a market for your app?

Research online industry journals run a search on Google Trends, conduct keyword research, talk to industry experts – gather as much information you can about your potential market and your ability to scale an idea here.

Who is your competition?

There can be similar apps in your space that are targeting the same problem and users as you are. Search who they are, check what they’re doing, read online reviews, and run through their social media handles. Collect all this data and analyze the expectations for an app like this and what you can improve upon as you build your own app.

Who are your users?

Identify your target audience and define your user persona. Uncover how do they tackle the identified problem today, how satisfied or dissatisfied are they with the existing solution, and how is your app going to improve this for them?

Create a basic outline for your idea

Once you are done with the nitty-gritty, it’s time to sketch your app together with a wireframe which is one of the most important elements when answering the question of how to turn your app idea into reality. Your wireframe is the draft of your app’s main architecture. Don’t get carried away making all the design choices just yet, rather stick to the main fundamentals or features of your application. Create a detailed and specific outline of how things are going to work and what pages and functions are needed. Before jumping on to design, keep going back and forth to find if there is any snag in the navigation or screen layout. Move ahead only when you’re satisfied with your wireframes.

Get your app designed

The sketch is ready, now it’s time to color it! This is a super important step as this will decide if your users will stick to using your app or will just delete it after one use. So it’s wise that you don’t rush or skimp through this process. Start by sketching the user interface (UI) for your application. There are various options for how you can go about it as you can either use a paper or a software tool that lets you create mockups for your app. Decide what colors, fonts, and design elements you’re going to use for your app design. Since this is such a crucial step, even a small misstep can create a big problem. We’d recommend you to hand this to a team of designers or programmers with enough technical knowledge or experience to get your product designed faster.

Time to launch and market your app!

Now that you have your fully-functioning app, it’s time to put it to the test. Make sure every aspect of your app is functioning properly and is visually appealing. Before revealing your masterpiece to the world, run beta testing of your product. This means launching a beta version of your app and making it available for early-adopters. This way you’ll know how your app performs in the live environment and how the audience reacts to it. Collect valuable feedback and use it to improve your app.

After planning, designing, and testing finally it’s time to hit the shelves! But publishing your app to either the App Store or Google Play Store doesn’t end your job. The more complex part is to put the word out there. Without proper marketing, your app will hit the pile of apps that nobody pays attention to. Use the power of social media ads, influencers, or email marketing to spark a conversation about your product.

Lastly, don’t forget to listen to user feedback. Keep improving and updating your app regularly to give users the best experience.

We hope this blog helped in simplifying a very complex process. But again, app development is an ongoing affair that will continue even after the initial launch of the product. This is why you need the best team by your side. Spark Eighteen is a professional team of designers that provide mobile app development services to companies across different industries. Feel free to contact us here.

December 15, 2020March 26, 2021

Design for the users: 8 Key elements of a great mobile app UX design

What makes a great mobile app UX design? Hopefully by the end of this blog you’ll be able to answer this question.

Why do people download mobile apps?

A pretty straightforward question, right?

Users have needs and look for a fast and efficient way to achieve those needs. Apps are that “way”.

Simple question – simple answer. But again, scratching the surface, we can see that it is really not as easy as it seems and requires a bigger and deeper answer.

Table of Content:

A Clean Layout
Easy-to-Flow Navigation
Minimum User Input
Legible Text Content
Big Enough Tap-Targets
Hand Position Controls
Provides Personalization
Well-Tested

According to a study by TechJury, an average person has around 80 different apps installed on their phone, out of which only 9 of those apps are used daily. Further data by Statistics show that users abandon 25% of mobile apps on their phones just after one use.

The main reason why a user downloads an app is that they are looking for a unique experience that they won’t possibly get on a website. An experience that justifies the reason for why they should be downloading an app in the first place. After all, the more usable the app is, the higher user engagement it gets and the lower chance of uninstalls.

Implementing the best of mobile app UX design principles at every step of the design process can help you attain this. Following are the 8 best mobile app UX design practices that you need to consider for your app today!

8 Mobile App UX design principles

1. A Clean Layout

Users aren’t necessarily looking for a meaning behind your design. It’s a mobile app, not a Vincent Van Gogh painting for god sake!

They won’t take much time to drop out of an app that ruffles their feathers. That is why a simple and clean design that makes it easy for users to navigate, explore, and consume content is what we consider the golden recipe of a successful app design. Just have a look at this example below:

Absolutely no clutter! The mobile app layout seems fresh and feels relaxing to the eyes, doesn’t it? A minimalist and simple design is your best defense against the paradox of choice and will help you create the most holistic and satisfying mobile experience for your users.

2. Easy-to-Flow Navigation

Good navigation is a vehicle that directs users where they want to go. You know navigation is bad if you have to stop and wonder “How to reach a specific function?”.

To avoid this bummer, make your UX navigation intuitive so that users can immediately figure out how to get around your application. Use familiar icons (such as a “home” icon for the home page or “speech balloon” for messages), fewer options on the menu bar, and give users a visible indicator of which screen they are at the moment.

This is one of the most important elements of UX for apps. If a user finds it difficult to navigate through your app, they’re more likely to disengage and close or even uninstall the app before even using it.

3. Minimum User Input

The biggest challenge with smaller devices isn’t the screen size, but the typing experience. Typing on mobile screens isn’t always the most comfortable experience as in most cases the keyboard takes up more than half of the screen. With this situation at hand, you would not want to overwhelm users with a form that contains endless amounts of fields. Try and reduce the number of fields in a form by asking only the most relevant details.

Minimizing the number of fields isn’t enough – also focus on the areas where extra user effort is being put. For example, filling out an address is often the most difficult part of any form. Make it easy by using smart features like autocomplete which uses both geolocation and address prefilling to provide correct suggestions based on the user’s exact location. Similarly, customize the keyboard for the type of query like displaying a numeric keyboard when asking for a phone number or including the ‘@’ sign when asking for an email address. Ensure that these features are applied consistently throughout the app instead of just certain forms.

4. Legible Text Content

Text is one of the most critical elements of mobile UX design. If users are unable to read your content, then how will they use your app? As screen sizes are getting smaller, the strain on our eyes is increasing to read texts. This is why legibility is everything. This means that your texts should be easily distinguishable that the users do not find it troubling to read or analyze them. In fact, they shouldn’t feel the need to re-read it. Adjust the spacing, length, font, and style to find the most legible tuning for your mobile app.

5. Big Enough Tap-Targets

Ever played darts? Hitting the bulls-eye is way harder to do than hitting any other part of the dartboard. This is because bulls-eye is the smallest target on the board.

The same principle can be applied to mobile UX design. Smaller touch targets are hard for users to hit than the larger ones. So when you’re designing your mobile app, it is best to make your targets big so that they’re easy for users to tap If a user clicks on a tiny portion of the screen and if that doesn’t create the expected action, the user might get annoyed and exit the app. The solution is to make the tap-size at least 7-10mm so that they are able to locate the button and easily tap on it.

6. Hand Position Controls

Are you reading this blog on your phone? Even if you’re not, pick it up and see where you naturally place your fingers and thumb. Where can you tap? Which areas do you have to stretch your thumb to tap?

Hand positions and grip influence a large part of mobile UX design. In a research on mobile devices usage, it was found that 49% of people rely on one thumb to get things done on their phones. Even when you look at the image below, the colors indicate the areas where a user can reach their thumb to interact with the screen.

Green shows the area where they can easily use their thumb, yellow are the areas where they have to stretch a bit to reach, and red requires users to change the way they are holding their device. This means:

You need to place common actions in the easy to reach the green zone;
Place negative buttons (such as delete or cancel) in the hard to reach red zone so users do not accidentally tap on it.

7. Provides Personalization

We’ve been hearing the word ‘personalization’ a lot nowadays. It has become an integral part of designing in the digital system due to the ability to build a connection with the end-user. It gives users the content they’re searching for in the first place and eliminates any distraction in-between. The best part is, even the user is looking for it!

Personalize the user’s journey by allowing them to change settings, control push notifications from the app, and cancel actions. Apps can suggest or provide warnings but the end decision should be of the user to make. Let them ask questions or queries by integrating various types of feedback into your interface. Give users a sense of freedom and transparency.

8. Well-Tested

A thoroughly tested app prevents any future user problems.

The earlier you test your app, the earlier you fix any problems and win the trust of your users. Review different features, layouts, and variations of your mobile app design to see what is working best. Build a user-centered approach by testing your app with real-users, With each round, you’ll uncover different ways of improving your app design to meet the user’s needs.

Conclusion

Congratulations! Now that you’ve made it to the end of it, we can assume you’re equipped with the knowledge of creating an extraordinary design for your app. We hope now you understand the importance of UX for mobile applications. Following these mobile app ux design principles, you will be able to give users a better overall experience.

Get one step further to your dream app by joining hands with a great team like Spark Eighteen. Take a look at our work here!