July 04, 2025

Mobile App Design Company: Artkai’s Approach and Best Practices

As a mobile app design company, Artkai has designed dozens of diverse mobile solutions for clients across various industries. This led us to the development of a reliable and well-tested mobile design approach that guarantees results through digital solutions tailored to specific business goals and customers’ needs. However, what’s more important is that, with our team, businesses transform design into a strategic tool. It amplifies business success through 2x higher user adoption, a 30%+ increase in conversion and user satisfaction rates, boosting sales.

In this article, let’s unveil Artkai’s mobile design approach, which brings value to businesses of all sizes, from startups and small niche businesses to large enterprises and corporations. Also, we invite you to examine how it was effectively applied to a mobile banking application development.

Artkai’s Mobile App Design Approach and Key Principles

Over the years, we've provided mobile design services, creating user-friendly applications for a diverse range of domains. They include fintech, e-commerce, education, and healthcare, targeting both local and global audiences. Problem-solving UI/UX design for business has always had deep roots in Artkai’s agency practice, as we began as a design-first studio. One of the company's co-founders, now Head of Design, has over 15 years of experience in creating innovative and business-friendly design solutions. Furthermore, in our pursuit of excellence in mobile design services, we have assembled a team of designers with worldwide-recognized UX certification from NN/g. Their diverse skill set and expertise are finely tuned for developing user interfaces that enhance both business impact and user satisfaction.

We provide original solutions independently or as part of large-scale digital transformation processes. Yet, in each case, there is a set of key principles that ensure the effectiveness of Artkai's approach to mobile design and development. It allows us to guarantee durable results for our clients.

Discovery research

Design is much deeper than what users see. Each mobile design project that Artkai works on begins with an in-depth and detailed discovery phase. That allows us to gain a strategic vision in cases of creating new mobile applications or provides a helicopter view of the current product in projects where we have to redesign an existing mobile app.

The discovery phase encompasses market research, defining the target audience, conducting user research, analyzing the client's business objectives and unique selling points for the application, and other key steps. It is an effective way to identify potential pitfalls or frictions, prevent usability issues, and uncover opportunities for meaningful and practical solutions.

This stage also includes discovery workshops. They are effective in communicating the current state and reaching a consensus for optimal plans and milestones of mobile application design and development. On-site research and user surveys also help the design team to define or clarify users’ needs and issues of the user flows. This enables us to provide solutions that are a perfect fit, allowing users to solve their problems in the best way. As a result, the business behind the app experiences increased conversions and revenue growth.

Comprehensive design system

Seeing mobile app design as a strategic asset rather than just a set of visually appealing images, we provide our clients with a well-thought-out, consistent, and comprehensive design system. It serves as a foundation for a scalable, business-friendly, and user-centered mobile solution ready for seamless product development. Reusable, clearly documented UI libraries let us ensure a consistent visual identity, a responsive mobile experience, and rapid, error-free implementation across all platforms.

From a business perspective, it is an efficient and well-tested method for lowering costs associated with frequent redesigns and reducing development cycles. The business can see its product live and validate it on the market faster. The design system accelerates teamwork in the mobile design and development process, including subsequent stages such as extending or enhancing product functionality or adjusting it to meet user needs. Designers and developers work on a solid foundation of well-organized solutions. They ensure the quick creation of more consistent and, therefore, more user-friendly applications, easy to update according to changes in business strategy. Additionally, a thought-out design system helps companies deliver quicker results and reduce support load.

Inclusiveness and accessibility

As an experienced mobile app design company, we understand that accessibility is crucial for any digital product. The products we create fully comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) as well as Human Interface Guidelines and Material Design. That guarantees usability and ease of perception for diverse user groups. Practice shows that a well-thought-out accessibility of a mobile application can increase user retention by up to 40%. To provide our clients’ businesses with mobile solutions that are highly relevant and accessible to users with diverse abilities and disabilities, our design team constantly updates its knowledge and awareness, exploring and considering the latest research findings.

Another essential aspect is our close attention to ergonomics. For example, we place key controls within comfortable thumb reach. This significantly improves the overall user experience, resulting in a 60-70% increase in conversion rates.

Personalization of user experience

Today, personalization is an integral part of the mobile user experience. And it is much more than just a trend or desired aspect. Explorations and practical experience demonstrate that it is a highly impactful factor in achieving business goals behind mobile applications. Over 60% of users are more likely to purchase or order from a digital product that provides relevant recommendations and a customized experience. That’s why we place a strong focus on personalization. Artkai’s designers tailor mobile user interfaces to meet actual user needs and goals while considering user behavior, preferences, and context.

Another essential point in our app design process is the integration of user onboarding, as it influences user engagement and retention from the very start of interaction with the application. Onboarded with care and a deep understanding of possible pitfalls and challenges that may arise, app users get active and loyal. That enables us to increase user retention by around 50%. In business terms, it means the company has significantly more loyal customers who enjoy the experience and are more likely to return.

Development-friendly design solutions for high-performance

What makes our approach to mobile app design services efficient and ensures the actuality and implementability of design solutions is the close, effective, long-term collaboration of our design and front-end development teams. This synergy ensures that designs smoothly transition into responsive and high-performing code. It means that when creating a design for a mobile application of any complexity, at any stage of the creative process, we are based on a deep understanding of how it can be implemented optimally and productively.

Moreover, performance optimization is a central aspect of our workflow, as poor performance is known to cause up to 90% of users to abandon an app. At the same time, even a one-second improvement in mobile application speed can significantly increase conversions.

Feedback-based improvements

Practical and thought-out user flows, combined with a continuous A/B testing strategy, enable Artkai’s app design agency team to regularly and iteratively enhance clients’ products. This way, not only do we provide a positive user experience that fits users' needs and overcomes their expectations, but we also enable the business to avoid large-scale redesigns.

Artkai’s commitment goes far beyond the initial app release. We employ continuous improvement strategies and regularly refine our clients’ products based on real-time user feedback and thorough analysis. This lets the mobile app keep pace with user expectations, consistently improving usability and utility.

By partnering with Artkai as your mobile app development company, you can launch faster and reduce your ongoing costs. We deliver a product that your customers genuinely enjoy, return to frequently, and actively recommend.

Scalability and future-proofness

Whether creating an MVP or redesigning a large, complex enterprise product to meet users' actual needs, we approach each case by designing UX solutions and a design system that are scalable and future-proof. That means that we make it not only actual but also ready for growth and advancements. A comprehensive design system is based on an understanding of the business's nature, its goals, and the expectations of its target audience. It lays the foundation for the digital product that doesn’t just solve users’ problems and bring profits to the business now, but can be efficiently scaled when the time comes to set higher goals.

Aesthetic usability

Mobile app design is more about how the digital product solves the problem or achieves the users’ goal than creating an attractive appearance. However, the impact of the latter also shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s well-proven that the aesthetic-usability effect is no joke. Users tend to trust mobile applications more and become more engaged with them if they find their visual style aesthetically and emotionally appealing. Aware of the importance of this factor, we offer mobile app design services that help our clients' products capitalize on this competitive advantage to the fullest. That provides a positive customer experience and enhances the desirability of the digital product through a neat, functional, intuitive, and visually pleasing UX design.

Awareness of trends and technological advancements

The world of modern technologies changes rapidly, stimulating the introduction of new advancements, offering new ways to solve problems, and making different things popular all the time. In the realm of mobile design and development, we continually monitor the industry's growth and what’s current in digital products, what users expect and appreciate in mobile apps today, and what mobile design trends will shape the market of tomorrow. One of the practical and handy benefits in this aspect is our quarterly Design Trend Reports, which help businesses benchmark their products against competitors and provide insights into where the product stands, pinpointing precisely what can be done to improve it.

Benefits and Values Business Gets Through Mobile App Design

Let’s outline the key benefits businesses gain from our collaboration and the value they appreciate in creating mobile experiences and digital solutions for their customers with the Artkai team.

Product vision aligned with stakeholder and user expectations. Whether it's a new mobile app idea or the modernization of an already intensively used product, it often happens that the product vision doesn’t fully correspond with the real needs, problems, and capabilities of the target audience. We help align them carefully and ensure that the business idea behind the mobile product meets the expectations of both stakeholders and product users. It prevents our client’s business from further expenses on redesign and redevelopment.
Higher competitiveness. Up-to-date, user-friendly mobile experiences based on a solid design system and highly flexible for adjustments present a significant competitive advantage. They enable businesses to outpace their competitors and provide customers with fresh and innovative solutions.
Boost in user adoption. With Artkai, businesses set up intuitive and functional mobile applications that ensure increased user engagement and customer readiness to repeat the positive experience. A high level of user adoption means that an increasing number of users are ready to integrate the mobile solution into their daily routines and pay for services that enhance their quality of life. Thus, the company increases the number of loyal customers, which in turn results in higher sales and revenue.
Digital experiences that convert. One of the primary objectives behind each mobile application design project is to create a clear, concise path to conversions. And that’s what clients can be sure to achieve when they employ Artkai. The human-centered and accessible mobile interfaces we create reduce mental load and the number of required operations. Therefore, conversions occur faster, easier, and more frequently, making users happy and helping the business achieve its key performance indicators.
Scalability for business growth. Another essential aspect of creating a mobile product is providing stakeholders with transparency and confidence that it can be scaled efficiently and rapidly as the business advances to the next level. Our diverse experience in creating complex design systems that can be effectively expanded and scaled ensures that our clients receive a mobile application that is flexible to adapt to changes in the business's progress and evolution.
Reduced friction at key touchpoints. Many issues and frictions in the digital experience lower conversions or worsen the overall user experience of interacting with a brand through a mobile product, leading to a decrease in sales and a loss of audience. Artkai’s approach ensures that the negative impact can be reduced or eliminated through consistent, user-friendly mobile design. That allows the business to enhance the overall customer experience and facilitate efficient delivery and sales.
Lower costs in the long-term perspective. A comprehensive, expandable, and future-proof design system enables our clients to significantly reduce costs. The product will be well-prepared to be adjusted and refreshed rather than being costly redesigned for the following levels of business success.

Let’s examine how our mobile design approach was applied in a real, practical case of creating a mobile application for a complex fintech solution.

Case Study: Complex Mobile Banking App Design

With the rapid growth of the market for various fintech services, more people are embracing the convenience of mobile banking with a trustworthy provider. Therefore, providers of such services need to adapt to market opportunities and expectations in this segment to meet their customers’ needs and goals. In this mobile app design project, Artkai’s team worked on that type of business objective. Our client, a bank operating with a broad target audience in many countries, strove to achieve this by building a solid and user-friendly mobile product that would provide the full range of mobile banking services.

Challenge and Business Goals

The primary reason our client decided to invest in top-level mobile design for their application was that the company had reached a turning point where their digital products required significant improvement. At this stage, their mobile application needed to evolve from a functional to a truly user-centric one. As more of their users relied primarily on a mobile experience, the fragmented legacy app solutions and inconsistent design, which varied across different countries, could no longer remain sustainable.

So, the primary challenge for the Arkai team wasn’t just about improving UI. We had to build up a seamless, modern experience that aligned with actual user expectations at the current stage and would be future-proof for the next ones. The bank understood that, at the time, the mobile experience was starting to significantly define the brand's face. For the increasing number of users, it was the only point of interaction with the financial services provider. So, investing in a first-class mobile design meant investing in long-term customer loyalty, retention, and digital maturity. Redesigning and readjusting such complex and widely used mobile products is a complicated and serious decision to make. Still, the client was ready to move from pointy patchwork updates to building a future-proof solution that would effectively scale across regions, cultures, and user needs, with accessibility, clarity, and trust at its core.

One of the biggest challenges in this project was to create a single design system that would effectively support multiple countries, teams, and product features. At the same time, it had to stay flexible to adapt to local needs and the diversity of user behaviors, as well as meet regulatory compliance differences, which are crucial for the finance and banking sector.

Among a variety of app design companies, the client’s team chose Artkai for our strategic UX approach and proven track record in delivering scalable digital products. So, our cooperation started with an in-depth discovery phase. During it, we dived deep into the actual client’s business goals and pain points and aligned them with the future vision of the mobile experience that would give the client a competitive advantage. Our well-trained ability to combine design excellence with deep research and systematic thinking was a key factor in establishing this partnership.

Process and Solutions

The process began with a comprehensive UX discovery phase across six markets: Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania. We were aware from the beginning that the design was to be created for not just one app but a regional ecosystem. Therefore, in-depth, contextual research was a key factor in laying the solid foundation for a design system that would be globally consistent and scalable, while also corresponding to the needs and specific nature of each geographic segment.

Our research phase included:

Competitive audit (local and global neobanks, fintech apps)
Target audience segmentation and persona creation
Desk research on local banking habits and digital penetration
UX analysis to understand behavior patterns and expectations
Trend analysis (both product design and fintech trends)
Mobile usage behavior studies
Accessibility heuristics audit
Mapping out regulatory requirements and banking flows per country

With these insights, we created a flexible yet cohesive design system that could scale and adapt to local nuances without compromising consistency.

It’s worth mentioning that in this project, our UI/UX designers traditionally acted as full-stack product creators. The team conducted user research, built flows, designed scalable components, and ensured accessibility compliance. Also, it was crucial to align all the mentioned design solutions with the brand's new visual identity. This integrated setup enabled us to move quickly, stay aligned, and create a deeply considered experience that is intuitive, secure, and relevant in every country.

To ensure alignment and provide close collaboration with the client’s side, Artkai’s design team participated in multiple meetings. In particular, we went to the ProCredit offices in Bucharest and Frankfurt for offline discussions. At the first of these offline sessions, we presented the client with our general vision. The next meeting focused on the client’s choice between two visual concepts for the new mobile application designs, with representatives from all local branches involved in the process. This way, we aligned a clear, consistent vision behind the specific features and mutual goals of all the bank branches, enabling us to find the best approach for their mobile products.

The mobile design process was based on striking a balance between user needs and business outcomes, providing supportive, user-friendly solutions at the intersection of empathy and strategy.

The aspects of impact in this case of app design for mobile banking were the following:

User-centered thinking: Every screen, flow, and interaction was designed based on real behaviors and in-depth analysis rather than assumptions. By listening to users, observing their context, and removing friction wherever possible, we paved the way for a seamless user experience, also transforming the way the business communicates with its customers.
Business-aligned UX: All mobile app design solutions were created with clear business goals in mind. We prioritized conversion, retention, and activation as primary objectives and translated them into UX designs that are performing, efficient, and impactful.
Accessibility by default: Inclusive design was embedded in our process at all stages and aspects, from contrast ratios to motion sensitivity, following international standards and tests for real-world usability to enable the broad target audience of the product to use it conveniently and without extra effort.
Real-world usability: The mobile design takes into account real-life environments and interaction scenarios with a product, supporting one-handed use, quick actions, and mobile ergonomics.
Content-first UX: When creating web and mobile user experiences, we prioritize clarity, informativeness, and functionality of the digital product over decoration. So, information architecture, content hierarchy, and microcopy were treated as design tools that boost positive UX solutions, allowing the content and functionality to reach users more quickly and easily.
Modular and scalable systems: The design system we created ensured coherence in the mobile app design across all markets, making the product well-suited for localization and functional flexibility.
Micro-interactions and emotional UX: To reinforce trust and engagement, we crafted feedback and transitions that feel responsive and human, stimulating positive emotional appeal.
Contextual adaptation: The aspect of multiple geographic user groups meant that we had to care about each cultural context type, as what feels intuitive in one country might not work in another. To make it work, we localized flows and design patterns to align with regional expectations and preferences.

Outcome

What our client obtained was an efficient, flexible, and business-driven design system built for scale, being deeply human and user-friendly.

So, we didn’t just build a design system for our client’s business. We built an ecosystem that is modular, scalable, and deeply rooted in real-world banking logic, serving as a source of truth across teams and geographies.

With a new mobile design system, our client gained:

A unified visual language that strengthens brand consistency across countries, services, and segments and is prepared to work well on different operational systems
A component library that supports fast iteration and future development
Flexible tokens and patterns that allow localization without breaking the system
Accessibility built in from scratch at all levels, meeting all the actual standards and requirements
Purpose-built mobile application for multi-country expansion, supporting different alphabets, form formats, payment flows, and UX expectations.

To sum up, the client’s collaboration with the Artkai team, as a mobile app design company, resulted in creating a living system that grows and evolves with the product, performs and scales efficiently, and maintains a consistent, accessible, and supportive user experience, regardless of where it's used worldwide.

Bottom Line

The mobile app design case described above, as well as many others we have worked on for clients across various industries, proves that design is much deeper, broader, and more comprehensive than just an attractive visual style. It is the factor that ensures users have the opportunity to find a fast and easy solution to their problems or the best way to achieve their goals. For the business providing that opportunity, well-crafted app design drives customer engagement and retention. And they directly influence revenue through user-centered, friendly digital products.

Do you have a mobile app idea that you strive to turn into a real, live digital product? Or does your business need a thoughtful refresh of the existing application to meet the current market demands? Anyway, we are ready to become your reliable partner on the path to providing a full range of services, from strategy and discovery to execution and implementation. Contact us, and let’s talk about creating a business-driven and user-friendly mobile app together.