Mobile App Redesign Services

Redesign, refactor or rebuild: reading the symptoms

Not every tired app needs new screens, and not every confusing app needs new code. Tepia sorts the symptoms first, because each points to a different kind of work:

Many apps need a mix: a redesign of two or three high traffic flows plus targeted code fixes underneath. Full rebuilds are the exception, and our guide on whether to rebuild or refactor your app explains how Tepia makes that call.

What Tepia studies before redrawing a screen

• Store reviews: one and two star reviews from the last year, tagged by theme, often point straight at the broken flow.
• Analytics funnels: where people abandon onboarding, search, booking or checkout, and on which devices and OS versions.
• Support tickets: the questions your team answers every day are design problems in disguise.
• User interviews and usability tests: five to eight sessions with current users on their own phones, watching them complete real tasks.
• Accessibility audit: text scaling, color contrast, touch target size and screen reader order, checked against WCAG 2.1 AA.
• Platform guidelines: gaps against Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and Google’s Material Design, including newer patterns such as Apple’s Liquid Glass styling.

The output is a ranked list of problems with evidence attached, so the redesign targets the screens that matter instead of repainting all of them. If your analytics are thin, Tepia adds tracking first through app analytics implementation. Our UX research and usability testing page covers the research methods in more depth.

Keeping current users while the app changes

The biggest risk in a redesign is alienating the people who already open the app every week. Tepia manages that risk in concrete ways:

• Keep muscle memory where it works. If users always find reorder in the bottom tab, it stays there even when the visuals change.
• Ship behind feature flags. New flows switch on for staff, then a small share of users, then everyone, with the old flow ready as a fallback.
• Use the stores’ release controls. Apple’s phased release spreads an update over seven days, and Google Play staged rollouts start with a small percentage of users and can be halted if crash rates rise.
• Explain the change inside the app. A short what’s new screen on first launch beats a surprised one star review.
• Watch the right numbers. Task completion, crash free sessions, ratings and support volume are compared before and after each stage.

Tepia also sequences the work so the first release improves the worst flow quickly, rather than holding everything back for one large reveal months later. Early wins buy patience for the rest of the change.

How Tepia approaches app redesign

A US based project manager and design lead run the redesign through Tepia’s six phases.

1. Discovery: a system investigation of the current app and backend, user interviews and the evidence review above. Deliverables are an Investigation Summary, an Interview Summary and User Stories for each flow being redesigned.
2. Design: a design questionnaire capturing what the brand must keep, moodboards, a new style guide, detailed wireframes and sample designs, all tested with current users before engineering starts.
3. Development and Testing: the design system is built as reusable components first, then flows are rebuilt one at a time. Alpha and Beta schedules carry functional, user acceptance and accessibility testing on real devices.
4. Training: sessions for your support team on what changed, using the user story scenarios, so they can answer questions on day one.
5. Launch: phased release, monitoring, and transition of saved user settings and preferences from the old screens.
6. Support: issue resolution, fixes to rough edges users report, and feature requests that build on the new system.

Typically Discovery takes 1 to 3 months, shorter when you bring existing research or brand guidelines, development and QA take 2 to 6 months, and launch about a month. See our process for detail on each phase.

What you keep after a Tepia redesign

A redesign should leave you with more than new screens. Tepia hands over assets your team can keep building on:

• A design system file with documented tokens for color, type, spacing and motion, in light and dark modes.
• A matching component library in code, whether the app is Swift, Kotlin, React Native or Flutter.
• An accessibility report showing WCAG 2.1 AA results for each redesigned flow; see mobile app accessibility for the standard we test to.
• Before and after metrics for every flow that changed.
• Onboarding updates where first use was the problem, covered under app onboarding design.

Tepia also plans for the next platform shift. Apple and Google refresh their design languages every few years, and an app built on tokens and shared components can adopt a new style by updating the system rather than touching every screen by hand. That is the difference between a redesign you repeat every three years and one you can keep evolving.

If you are weighing a redesign, browse our work or talk to Tepia with your store reviews in hand. They are usually the fastest way to see where to start.

Frequently asked questions