To create the best product, you need to understand the interface design – how people will move through a user session, what various screens will look like to users, and importantly, what you hope to achieve when active users sign on.
There’s always the question of what data you want to gather from active users, either in an initial session, or in future return sessions. It starts with simple things like name, username and password. But many applications go further to request items like phone numbers and emails, and even Social Security numbers and other identifiers.
These are some things to think about with landing page design. On a mobile app, your screen is fairly small, so you have to think about what users will first encounter as they start to interact with your application.
In terms of server communication, think about what type of data (and what volume of data) is going to be archived from user sessions. This has a technical impact on your back end, but it also has an impact on how you design the interface. You want to make sure you’re creating a good chain of custody for the data that you want to get from users.
Experienced web designers know the dilemma of trying to figure out priorities in a top level menu. Obviously, everything can’t go at the top. What are the major functions and utilities that you want people to be able to find easily? Those are what you want to go at the top. Other items can be nested in.
With that in mind, it makes sense to think about adding some flash or garnishes to control buttons and other controls, or adding some design aspect to a scrollbar or something where the user is trying to do a particular thing on your application.