Turning a WordPress website into a mobile app to deliver native user experience is now a lucrative option for millions of users having their web presence with this popular platform. There are too many great app building tools to turn your WordPress website quickly into a great looking mobile app with easy accessibility and ease of use on mobile devices. It doesn't take a lot of costs and any bigger time involvement, and it can often be handled by inexperienced developers or even by the people without any coding background. But developing WordPress mobile apps with this ready in hand tools does not come without the design glitches enough to put the user experience at stake. From Wordpress login issues to difficulty in uploading media files to problems in fitting mobile viewport, there are too many issues that are common when building the app without professional help. This is why experienced WordPress developers and designers have such an important role to play in you when it comes to making the app deliver consistent traction and user engagement. Here in this post, we will focus on some of the most common and design challenges for WordPress mobile apps.

Making the content fit into the mobile viewport

In a responsively designed what press website it is not rare to see some contents not properly fitting into the mobile viewport. It happens more commonly in multi-layered websites turning into mobile apps maintaining the same look and feel. When you introduce parallax affect the background image or a particular slide may not be properly viewed on the mobile screen. When visual contents or any design element just does not fit the mobile viewport the whole effect of the design goes waste. This is why it is advisable to test the final look and feel of the app number of times in various devices with different screen size and resolution.

Mind the typeface

For a better native experience of your WordPress website in mobile devices, it is vital to choose the perfect typeface or font for both of your on page contents and navigation elements. The modern typeface that suits perfectly for mobile readability and viewing has some common elements like clarity, size-responsive, adaptability and easy readability minus any distraction. Ideally, a great font must not be conspicuous and say ‘look at me’ but rather should attract attention to the content and rather should refer to the content by saying ‘look at this’.  A great typeface does not attract attention to it but rather makes it easy to read and view the content.

Mind the thumb rule

Whether you are a WordPress blog or an e-commerce site, most users will find it suitable to browse your website single-handedly on their mobile screen. While browsing single-handedly on the handheld device, most users use their thumb for navigation. Naturally all the clickable and frequently required buttons, as well as navigational elements, should be within reach of the thumb. This design principle widely recognized as the thumb rule should be kept in mind while transforming your WordPress blog or website into a mobile app. When users find most of the elements within the easy reach of the thumb, your website enjoys better traction and engagement.

Use plug-ins only that is necessary

As the CMS platform, WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility and ease of use thanks to the thousands of useful plug-ins covering practically every need imaginable. From website analytics to social media sharing to managing widgets visual media, for every different element, you have many plug-ins to choose from. A majority of these plugins are free. There are so many options that we often end up downloading more plug-ins than we require. Too many plug-ins and most specifically the ones we do not need actually leads to performance issues and can even make the website slower. To stay clear of such unwanted glitches use a minimum number of plug-ins and only those you require at any cost.

Keep number of elements per page at a minimum

Designing your WordPress website and converting the whole experience for the mobile users with a native mobile app are altogether two different things and you need to have separate design approaches for each of them. While the regular WordPress website permits you to offer civil visual elements on every page, when you are going to cater mobile audience specifically you need to keep the on page elements at a minimum to prevent visual clutter.

• Consider using hidden menu with the hamburger icon in the corner. For the mobile screen of a WordPress app, it not only offers a smart look but also helps to keep the clutter at bay.
• To make contents visually optimized for mobile audience and use structured text content with small sentences and paragraphs, frequent headings and bullet points.
• Make this ETA buttons bigger for easier finger touch and quick visibility.
• Take advantage of some white space around every content to allow a better visibility of content to allow a better visibility.
• If through your website you allow business transaction make sure that your WordPress mobile app offers easy and quick transaction.

WordPress app building tools versus export development service

The above-mentioned development and design principles for your new workplace mobile app have to be implemented to ensure optimum user attraction and engagement. But when you build your new mobile app just by converting the WordPress website through any of the popular app building tools your lack of expertise and experience can prevent you from ensuring proper implementation of the design principles.

Tools like App Presser, Mobile Roadie, Reactor, etc. can just work fine as long as you look for the basics and can withstand shortcomings in design. For maximum professional output, you need the service of experienced WordPress mobile app developers even when using these tools.

To conclude, we must advise you to test your new WordPress mobile app several times across the devices and platforms and use advanced testing tools before you make the app public. If you have hired an app development company for your new workplace mobile app, make sure they use the latest testing tools and an advanced testing environment.