Typography is an essential part of this process and logically, appearance is the big motive in order to improve a design. A nice typography will always be your best choice.
We have to take into account that approximately the 95% of digital communication happens through text messaging. That is to say, although the app may have a beautiful design, logo or icon, the text is the one transmitting the message to the other user. It is crucial that we take this attribute to the advantage of our app because it is the key to a fluent interaction. Ultimately, the difficulty on the reading of the texts will affect the experience of the user and the usage of the app.
General advice to optimize your typography on smaller screens:
Consider letter size
Apple states in its developer’s help page that “No matter how beautiful is your typography if it can be read in your app”. As a matter of fact the size and body of the text recommended for the designing of apps for IOS and Android devices is around 11 and 17 points. But size is not the only important thing regarding the designing of apps, we have also take into account that despite webs have between 60 and 75 characters per line, on mobile apps we should reduce that to 35 and 50 characters per line.
Consider spaces
When we have to design mobile apps, we have very little space to organize the content of the app, that is why we have to make a smart use of the blank spaces, leaving spaces between lines, respecting the margins and granting simplicity to the design. To sum up, the space enhances legibility. A general rule that should always be consider is that the space between letters is less than the space between words. And likewise, the space between words is less than the space between lines. This hierarchy allows the user to read the text in a more fluent way.
Do not underestimate the contrast
It is necessary to get a good contrast between background and text in order to get our message through the user correctly. The best option is to choose black text on white background or vice versa. However, if we all choose these options, all the apps will look alike. That is why, having this in mind, we can play with colors and see which combination goes better with the colors of the brand and which style is better for our mobile app. Other factors to take into account are the ideal length of a line of text, the line spacing and the tracking (space between all the letters in a word).
There are obviously, several other motives to pay attention to the typography, some of them are related to subjective factors, however, choosing the right typography to app designing have to be tested considering these factors. As a matter of fact, A/B tests can be carried out so as to verify which type of text has better conversions and generates more interaction between real users.
Lastly, but not least, app designers should take into account that the chosen typography always have to be coherent with the philosophy of our brand.
Serious apps, on big commercial companies with a high professional profile will have a very different typography from those apps that look for entertainment or a young and fun aspect.
