User Flow for App Development: A Beginner’s Guide

Written by Katie Iannace, Jan 17, 2025

Building an app is so much more than interface design and feature prioritization (though those choices matter!) You also must consider the way a user moves through the app. What happens if a user taps this button—then what? Or perhaps a user opens this menu instead—then what? If you’re starting to see a choose-your-own-adventure-style decision tree in your head, you’re on the right track.

In the world of app development, those maps of user decisions are called user flow. A user flow is the foundation of every successful app. Even though non-developers rarely consider them, user flows are an essential step in the development process.

An app user flow diagram lays out the path a user might take as they travel between screens or individual features on an app. Architecting an efficient user flow can make or break an app.

In this guide, we’ll unpack everything you need to know about app user flows. We’ll define what a user flow is (and isn’t), explore the steps to design an effective user flow, and share tips for implementing and testing your user flows.

What is a User Flow?

A user flow is like a map of your app. It paints a picture of users’ progressions through the app, from where they start to where they complete a goal and every step in between. User flows capture every step to achieve a desired outcome, like making a purchase or submitting a form.

To understand a user flow, consider this example from a clothes-shopping app:

User opens the app to the homepage →
Scrolls through “recently listed” items →
Finds a shirt. Add to cart: Yes or no? →
3a. If yes, proceed to the payment screen →
3b. If no, return to browsing clothing items →
From the payment screen, the user completes the purchase.

Designing a user flow for a new app is like a city planner mapping out roads for a new town. Some roads go from point A to point B. Some roads are one-way streets, and some roads cut through downtown, while others don’t. Just as real people will drive on those real roads to navigate the town someday, real users will take the pathways defined by a user flow. That’s why it’s so important to define clear user flows. These app user flows form the foundational structure of an app, so they must be designed to support intuitive and efficient user movement.

How to Create a Good User Flow

The most important quality of an effective app user flow is clarity. User flow diagrams shouldn’t be one giant tangle of arrows and pathways exploding from the home screen. That would be overwhelming. Instead, follow these tips:

Break Down Goals: Focus on a single user goal for each flow. For example, in a banking app, create separate flows for actions like checking account balances or viewing past statements.
Simplify Pathways: Minimize circular or multidirectional arrows. Complex loops confuse users and developers alike.
Test for Redundancies: Identify and eliminate unnecessary steps to streamline the user experience.

User Flow vs. User Journey

The terms “user flow” and “user journey” are often used interchangeably. However, there is a nuanced difference between the two. Though both depict user pathways through an app, a user journey also considers users’ feelings and thoughts at each step along the way. A user journey focuses less on assigning context to the way screens and features relate and more on graphing a user’s interactions alongside their emotions.

For example, a user journey about the audio-streaming app Spotify would offer a segmented high-level overview of the user’s actions and sentiments while navigating the app.

A Spotify user journey might begin with the different ways a user could come to download the app, maybe from hearing a Spotify radio commercial or a friend’s recommendation. At this point, the user is intrigued by the new app.
Once downloaded, the user can listen to music. There are a few ways to listen to music- such as the “browse” feature on the home screen, viewing a playlist, or searching directly for a specific artist. Now, the user feels excited to see the music library.
From here, the user might want to select a song from an album, only to discover that a basic account limits users to shuffling songs instead. This might leave the user feeling frustrated.

A user flow for the same process would be more specific, describing screen-by-screen what a user sees. The user logs in for the first time and then makes a choice from a list of available features, like a search bar, a folder of favorite artists, and a “recommended for you” browse button. The Spotify app user flow would then answer questions like “From the browse new music screen, what does the user click next if they want to play music?”

User journeys can help identify potential pain points and negative user experiences. So, while they’re different from user flows, they’re an important tool in a developer’s toolkit.

Why is a User Flow Important?

A clear visual representation of user flow is critical for app success. Here’s why:

Identify Complexities Early: Mapping user actions upfront reveals potential challenges and ensures the development team is aligned. In this way, user flows support proactive communication and smooth the entire development process.
Spot Problem Areas: Visualizing interactions helps correct confusing or inefficient pathways. User flows bring attention to potential issues, allowing teams to correct them before real users experience them.
Avoid Costly Errors: Designing flows before coding saves resources by preventing issues during development. By outlining user pathways ahead of time, teams can reduce the chances of costly corrections and changes.

Benefits of Making a User Flow

Supporting faster product iteration: It is much easier to change an idea than to re-code an already-built app. Creating a user flow diagram can reveal how a pathway might not be ideal. Instead of wasting valuable resources and then backtracking to correct a feature, a user flow helps surface and avoid problems from the beginning.
Creating an intuitive interface design: With a clearly defined user flow, UI developers don’t have to sit around waiting for the UX team to create something just to get started. Designers can start making mockups for features and screens with confidence that they’re easily navigable and aesthetically pleasing. User flows help eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies early supporting an interface that’s intuitive from the first go.
Clarifying the idea to colleagues and backers: Often, different people come to the app development process with different, unstated assumptions. For example, an app creator might request that users have the ability to log in to an account. This person might imagine that users will login with a username and password and advance to the profile page. Upon hearing the idea of a login screen, however, a developer might assume that users log in with an email address and proceed to their home screen, not a profile page. Specifying a user flow removes accidental assumptions and makes sure everyone has the same clear understanding of the concept.
Predicting potential frustrations: The process of writing out how a user goes from one point to an end goal can reveal whether or not a pathway is too complicated. Sometimes features are more complex than initially suspected, so they need to be retooled to create a more fluid user experience. Instead of building an app by patching complexities together, developers have the opportunity to create a flow that is instinctive and efficient for users. This process, in turn, will keep users coming back to the app.
Supporting a user-centric app design: User flows take the abstract concept of users and ground them in reality. Creating an app user flow forces you to “put yourself in their shoes,” so to speak. This empathy-building exercise is a great way to design a user-centered product—one that users love and keep coming back to—right away.

user flow design

2. Support Ticket User Flow

This diagram demonstrates how a user flow covers a focused portion of an app’s functionality. An effective user flow centers around a single goal. In this example, it’s the flow surrounding support tickets.

3. Home Screen User Flow

Even streamlined user flows can account for a breadth of choices at each step. This home screen user flow outlines the choices available to users from the time they open the app to the time they choose their goal on the home screen.