What is web app design? 5 steps to mastering the process

It’s tricky to create a web application that’s highly interactive, works seamlessly across multiple devices, and offers users all the features they need without overwhelming them with options.

But by using a flexible design process that keeps user needs front and center, anyone can build a web app that creates customer delight.

Use our 5-step process to streamline your web app design workflow and prioritize design decisions that help you create an amazing product experience for your users. We’ll also show you how to adapt our flexible process to your unique business needs. 

What is web app design?

Web app design is the process of creating a website application that delivers a seamless user experience (UX) and meets users’ core needs with a clear, compelling user interface (UI). 

For example, when Airbnb realized users wanted a dynamic way of searching for holiday rentals based on different factors like price and location, they created an interactive web app that includes sophisticated filters and a clickable map function—all wrapped up in a minimalist UI.

Web applications vs. websites

Web applications and websites share several traits: 

• Browser-based access: both are easily accessible without needing to download software

• Focus on UI/UX: a clean, intuitive interface and smooth user experience are key for both

• Device compatibility: users can interact with either from a phone, tablet, or desktop

So what are the key differences between websites and web applications? 

• Websites are primarily content-driven and focus on sharing information that encourages action—think signing up, exploring, or purchasing. They tend to have static pages and an open flow, letting visitors explore in whatever order makes sense for them. A SaaS company’s website might explain what the product does, showcase the team, and share success stories—but you’re not using the product itself there.

• Web apps are dynamic and task-oriented, guiding users through specific paths to complete their goals. They let users perform tasks, manipulate data, and follow specific workflows. Think of a project management tool that lives entirely in your browser, allowing you to create tasks, assign team members, and track progress—all within the app.

Understanding these distinctions is key when deciding whether you need a website, a web app, or both. After all, they serve different purposes but can complement each other beautifully.

Web app design vs. website design

Designing a web app has a lot in common with designing a website, but it’s got its own particularities too. The focus shifts—you’re not thinking solely about how it looks but also about

• How responsive it is, because users could be on anything from a phone to a widescreen monitor

• How well it performs across devices, because no one sticks around for slow load times

• How intuitive the journey feels, because users should always know what to do next without getting lost

Web apps are also more complex than websites. You’ve also got to ask questions like, “Will users need to access this offline?” If yes, you’ll need to figure out how they can still get their tasks done without a perfect internet connection.

Google Docs has an offline mode that allows users to continue working on their documents even without an internet connection. Source

Not too long ago, building a web app felt like something only big companies with endless design and dev resources could pull off. But that’s changed. These days, with a clear design process and the right tools, even smaller teams can create web apps that work like a dream.

Why you need a web app design process

A great web app design process helps you

• Solve the most pressing user problems

• Stay relevant in an evolving market

• Offer excellent usability and clear navigation hierarchies that let users achieve what they came to do

• Keep users engaged with an attractive and intuitive experience 

• Increase conversions and user satisfaction

• Get your whole team aligned around your design backlog

• Get buy-in from stakeholders on your ideas

Without a clear process for web app design, you may end up investing resources into ideas that haven’t been validated, creating confusion and misalignment in your team, or missing opportunities to provide key user solutions and get ahead of potential blockers.

A 5-step web app design process that responds to user needs

Follow these 5 steps to structure your web app design—adapting the process to your particular team, organization, and customers—so it’s as clear and effective as possible for you to satisfy user needs. 

Remember that web app design is a circular process: repeat steps and move back and forth in line with workflow constraints, as well as the user insights you discover along the way.

Here’s how to get started: 

1. Discover key user and market needs

Start by understanding your users and product market. Ask yourself key web app design questions to guide your research, including

• Who will use this web app? 

• What goals do our users have?

• What are our main organizational goals with this web app? 

• How will our web app stand out from the competition?

Pinpoint exactly what problems your web app will solve and the user needs it will meet. Spend time researching your competitors—make sure you crawl app stores and search engines for keywords relevant to your web app ideas to see what others are doing—but focus your main efforts on deeply understanding your users and their jobs to be done. 

💡 Pro tip: the best way of finding out what your users need is to ask them directly. 

Schedule interviews with potential users and use Contentsquare Surveys and feedback collection widgets to ask open-ended questions. Focus on learning more about 

• Who your users are

• What pain points and struggles they’re experiencing

• What solutions your web app can provide them

Contentsquare’s Voice of Customer (VoC) tools help you create surveys that ask users about their product experience

2. Define your solutions

Once you’ve done your research, use those insights to create user personas, define problem statements, and map out an ideal customer journey.

Next, generate ideas to solve the key user problems you’ve identified. Use brainstorming techniques like mind mapping or SCAMPER to ideate web app features and elements that will address your users’ most urgent needs. 

You’ll likely come up with several different potential solutions. Use prioritization techniques like the 'MoSCoW approach,' which divides ideas into must-have/should-have/could-have/won’t-need categories. This will help you decide where to focus your resources for the rest of the design process. 

3. Create a backlog for your web app design and collaborate

Once you’ve defined the solutions your web app will offer, and have a clear sense of your priorities, you can plan out the web app design process by creating a backlog—a list of ideas for new design features, updates to existing features, bug fixes, and infrastructure optimizations. Include a plan for the next stages of the product design process, including development, testing, and further user discovery. 

The best backlogs are 

• Structured: organize it in a way that keeps priorities clear and progress easy to track, so nothing important slips through the cracks

• Flexible: you don’t want to get too fixated on every single web app element or concrete timelines for every single step 

• Collaborative: getting input from people with different roles across your team and organization will strengthen your web app solutions and plan to realize them

💡 Pro tip: clear, organization-wide communication is key to a successful web app design process. 

Contentsquare’s customizable dashboards and Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations help you communicate user insights and ensure the right information reaches the right department. 

For example, when a trial user leaves negative feedback, automate an alert to be sent to team members in design, development, and customer support roles so they can quickly respond.

Contentsquare’s automated Slack notifications keep relevant team members in the loop

4. Build and iterate

Next, focus on developing solutions you can test and roll out with real users. Start with mockups, wireframes, and prototypes that model the basic web abb navigation architecture and UX elements. Then, test these with current or potential users and incorporate their feedback into future iterations. 

At later stages of development, shift your business team's focus to UI design and branding elements as well as navigation tools so you can get user feedback on these aspects.

5. Launch and test

Launching your web app or new features is an opportunity to further test and refine your design. Consider a soft launch, where you roll out to a small group of users first so you can fix bugs and make changes before releasing a feature full-scale. 

This is also the perfect time to run usability tests. Try giving someone a log-in page or a dashboard to navigate. Are they struggling to find the sign-up button? Taking too long to complete a task like uploading a file or setting a preference? These sessions reveal where users get stuck or confused, helping you fine-tune your design before you dive into the details.

This continuous discovery mindset is key to successful design. By constantly seeking out user feedback, you improve your design, prioritize brilliantly, and delight your users with each iteration. 

At this stage, you should run different checks to get a full picture of how well your web app is working. Make sure you do these 2 things. 

• Test key website monitoring metrics: monitoring your web app’s performance is key to satisfying your users. Web app users come with a mission—to get things done—so it’s important you ensure that your application offers fast loading speed and quick response time, and limits downtime crashes.

• Observe user behavior to improve engagement: by understanding how users behave on your web app, you identify product blockers and opportunities to improve your design. Insights on user behavior help you to fill in the blanks between what users tell you and what they actually do when navigating.

Case study: how NatWest boosted application rates with Contentsquare

NatWest is one of the largest retail banks in the UK, serving over 19 million customers with banking services, loans, credit cards, and mortgages. 

When they noticed a high exit rate on its youth savings product page, NatWest turned to Contentsquare:

• Journey Analysis tracked how users were moving through the page and helped them see exactly where they were dropping off

• Heatmaps revealed users weren’t clicking on the hidden CTA 

• Session Replay lets them watch real-time user behavior on the page

With this insight, NatWest redesigned the page by moving key info higher up and removing the hero image. This made the "Apply Now" button more visible and accessible and led to a bit uptick in applications.

Contentsquare Journey Analysis of NatWest’s Youth Savings page showing a high exit rate

Put user needs center stage with your web app design process 

With a structured but flexible web app design process, you ensure every step is driven by user needs. A user-centric design process also helps everyone on your team understand exactly why they’re working to improve your web app and feel motivated to make the end product as effective as possible. 

Tailor your design process to your users’ needs to light a fire under your team, keep everyone aligned, and provide a brilliant web app experience that will make you stand out online.

FAQs about the web app design process