Mobile App UI and UX Design Services

Who are the best app developers for design and UX

Lists of top app design agencies tend to rank by portfolio gloss. A better test is whether the agency’s designs survive contact with real users and real engineering. Tepia designs and builds under one roof, so the designers who draw the screens sit with the engineers who ship them and the project manager who tracks what users do after launch.

Tepia’s design leadership is US based, and a design lead is assigned to every engagement alongside the project manager and engineering lead. The team has designed apps for ministries (Daily Hope), wellness brands (The Work App), grocery chains (MNC Go), home improvement (RELI Solutions) and creator communities (Psych2Go), all on the Tepia portfolio.

Tepia calls its approach emotionally intelligent engineering. The question behind every screen is why a person would open this app tomorrow, and the design answers that before it worries about visual style.

Tepia's design deliverables, step by step

Design at Tepia is a defined phase with named outputs, not a loose creative period. The table below lists what you receive and when.

Everything is delivered in Figma with a component library the Tepia engineers build from directly, which is why Tepia’s designs and shipped apps match.

Retention driven UX, not just pretty screens

Industry analysts consistently report that a large share of mobile apps are abandoned within the first few days after install. Tepia’s design phase is organized around preventing that, with specific practices rather than slogans.

• First session design. The first open is mapped as its own flow: what the user sees before signing up, how quickly they reach value, and which permissions are asked for and when. Tepia delays login and push permission prompts until the user has a reason to say yes.
• Habit loops. For content and wellness apps such as Daily Hope and The Work App, Tepia designs the daily return path: a reason to come back, a clear place to land, and progress the user can see.
• Notification strategy. Push and email are designed alongside the screens, with frequency caps and user controls, because notifications are the most common reason for uninstall.
• Empty, error and offline states. Every screen gets a designed state for no data, failed requests and no connectivity, which is where most apps feel broken.
• Analytics events. Each User Story gets a measurable event so that after launch Tepia can show you where people drop off and fix it.

Build more than an app, build loyalty. Tepia treats design decisions like these as the place where loyalty starts.

How Tepia approaches mobile app UI and UX design

Design is phase two of Tepia’s six phase process, but it draws on phase one and feeds every phase after it.

1. Discovery. Tepia’s user interviews and system investigation produce the Interview Summary and User Stories that design works from. Designers join the interviews so they hear users first hand.
2. Design. Design questionnaire, moodboards, style guide, detailed wireframes and sample designs, with a clickable prototype tested with a handful of real users before sign off.
3. Development and Testing. Designers review every Alpha and Beta build against the designs, and user acceptance testing includes usability checks, not only functional ones.
4. Training. Training materials use the real screens and user story scenarios, so staff learn the app the way users will experience it.
5. Launch. Tepia designs App Store and Google Play screenshots and listing assets from the same style guide.

Accessibility and platform conventions

Tepia designs to WCAG 2.1 AA by default: color contrast, touch target size, support for Dynamic Type on iOS and font scaling on Android, screen reader labels for VoiceOver and TalkBack, and flows that work without color alone conveying meaning. For healthcare, government adjacent and enterprise clients this is often a contractual requirement, and for everyone else it simply makes the app usable by more people.

Tepia also respects platform conventions rather than forcing one visual language on both stores. iOS designs follow Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and Android designs follow Material Design 3 where it matters (navigation, back behavior, system sheets), while sharing the brand system. This is especially relevant for cross platform apps, where Tepia documents the intended differences up front.

Every design decision at Tepia is also checked against App Store and Google Play review rules, so a flow that looks great in Figma does not get rejected at submission.

Frequently asked questions