Mobile App UX/UI Design in San Francisco, USA

Mobile App UX/UI Design in San Francisco, USA — Mobile app design that converts Bay Area users into customers

Today, having mobile applications isn't enough for a San Francisco business. Your potential client opens a smartphone on BART, sees three or four similar offers, and decides in 5 seconds which one to engage. If yours is slow, unclear on mobile, or doesn't render correctly under iOS Safari with intermittent BART connectivity — you've lost that customer before they finished reading your headline. That's why investing in quality Mobile app design isn't a "luxury expense", it's a direct investment in revenue.

I'm Alex Filiuk, a Senior practitioner with 15 years of experience and a portfolio of 130+ projects. I deliver mobile applications for businesses in San Francisco, across the US (San Francisco, LA, Boston, Austin), in Europe (London, Manchester, Edinburgh), and in Ukraine. On this page I've collected what's worth knowing for an Bay Area business owner before commissioning mobile app design: how the engagement works, USD pricing brackets, which mistakes destroy ROI, and which 2025-2026 trends actually matter for the Bay Area market.

Why mobile-app design matters for San Francisco businesses

Bay Area is one of the most app-saturated user populations on Earth — the average San Franciscoer has 80–120 apps installed and uses 11–14 daily. Getting installed is hard. Staying past day-7 is harder. App design isn't a 'pretty UI' problem — it's a behavioral-design problem where every tap, every notification, every onboarding step either compounds retention or accelerates churn. A poorly designed onboarding flow can drop day-1 retention from 70% to 35% with no other variable changing.

What quality mobile-app design delivers for an Bay Area business:

• Day-7 retention lift. Properly designed onboarding + first-session UX raises day-7 retention from typical 25% to 45–55% in Bay Area consumer-app categories.
• App Store / Play Store rating signal. Designs validated by usability testing produce 4.6+ store ratings, which compound discovery via algorithmic ranking.
• Native-platform feel. iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Material 3 conformance — not 'web app stuck in a WebView'.
• Accessibility default. Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, TalkBack, color-contrast — required by NY State law and Apple / Google review guidelines.
• Engineering handoff. Token-driven design system that maps cleanly to SwiftUI / Jetpack Compose / React Native — minimizing engineering interpretation overhead.

Mobile-app design vs the templated approach

Naive mobile-app design is 'design beautiful screens in Figma'. The result is screens that look great in a portfolio but produce confusing, slow, churning apps in production. Real mobile-app design is a behavior-driven discipline: information architecture, onboarding optimization, gesture design, animation timing, accessibility, native-platform conformance.

A real SF-grade mobile-app design engagement covers:

• User research. 5–8 SF-based interviews, jobs-to-be-done articulation, behavioral pre-mortem on retention barriers.
• Information architecture. Tab-bar structure, navigation depth, surface-area trade-offs — designed before screens.
• Onboarding optimization. Day-1 first-session flow tuned to value-moment delivery in under 90 seconds.
• Gesture and animation design. Native gesture vocabulary, animation timing curves consistent with iOS / Android platform expectations.
• Accessibility. Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, TalkBack, switch control, RTL support — built in, not retrofitted.

Mobile-app design pairs naturally with mobile-app development when you need both phases run by a coordinated team, eliminating handoff loss between design and build.

Project types most-requested by Bay Area clients

Across 15 years and 130+ projects, I've noticed Bay Area business categories have their own digital signature. Most-common requests for mobile-app design:

• Fintech consumer apps. the Mission / FiDi fintech building budget, investment, crypto, payments apps with KYC / Plaid / Stripe Identity flows.
• Healthcare and wellness. SF-based clinics and wellness startups building patient portals, telehealth, fitness tracking — HIPAA-compliant UX.
• Marketplace and on-demand. the Mission / SoMa on-demand services (delivery, home services, beauty) needing dual-sided UX (consumer + provider).
• B2B field-ops apps. Bay Area service businesses (real estate, construction, property management) building internal apps for field-team workflow.
• Content and media. SoMa publishers and creators building subscription content apps, podcast players, audio-first UX.
• Loyalty and rewards. Bay Area retail and hospitality groups (restaurants, gyms, clubs) building loyalty programs and member experiences.

Different category, different approach — so I don't ship templates. Every engagement starts with discovery against your actual Bay Area market context.

The mobile-app design engagement, step by step

I work via a transparent process that 130+ clients have completed end-to-end. Each phase has a fixed deliverable that you receive in your hands. No "wait a month while I design" — you know what's happening every week, with weekly Slack updates and one Zoom sync at 8am Bay Area / 3pm Kyiv.

1. Discovery and research (week 1–2). Stakeholder interviews, 5–8 user interviews, competitive audit (Bay Area and US peers), jobs-to-be-done articulation.
2. Information architecture (week 2–3). Tab-bar structure, navigation depth, key-flow mapping, low-fidelity wireframes.
3. Design system (week 3–4). Tokens (color, typography, spacing, motion), base components, gesture vocabulary, accessibility audit.
4. Key screens (week 4–6). Onboarding, primary task flows, settings, edge states (empty, loading, error) — hi-fidelity in Figma.
5. Prototype and usability testing (week 6–7). Clickable Figma prototype, tested with 5–7 SF-based respondents, insights synthesized, revisions applied.
6. Engineering handoff (week 7–8). Figma Dev Mode specs, asset export, animation specs (Lottie / native), state-transition diagrams.
7. Post-launch QA support. Implementation review against mockups, deviations documented, fix support during build.

What you receive when the mobile-app design project completes

• Research synthesis: jobs-to-be-done, user archetypes, key insights documented.
• Information architecture: sitemap, navigation diagram, key user flows.
• Design system in Figma: tokens, components, gesture and motion specs.
• Hi-fidelity screens for all key flows, in iPhone (375pt) and large-iPhone / iPad / Android variants.
• Clickable prototype for stakeholder demos and usability testing.
• Usability test report: issues found, recommendations, session recordings.
• Dev specs: Figma Dev Mode, exported assets, animation specs (Lottie / Rive), state diagrams.
• App Store / Play Store assets: icon variants, screenshots, store-listing graphics.

Why hire a Ukraine-based Senior instead of an Bay Area agency

Bay Area has a deep pool of talent — and rates that match. A typical Senior at a SoMa agency: $180–280/hour. A 12-week engagement at a respectable SoMa studio: $80,000–180,000. The work is excellent, but the cost makes it inaccessible for most early-stage startups, mid-sized DTC brands, and bootstrapped B2B SaaS companies.

The remote Ukraine-Senior model gives you:

• 30–60% cost reduction. Same Senior expertise, same deliverables, transparent fixed-fee USD pricing.
• Single point of contact. No account manager, no project coordinator, no creative director "stepping in" mid-call. You talk directly with the person doing the work.
• Async-friendly cadence. The 7-hour gap (Bay Area EST → Kyiv) is a feature: I work while you sleep, you wake up to demos and questions in Slack, we sync 1× per week on Zoom.
• Production-grade quality. Same modern stack (Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind), same accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA, ADA-compliant), same handoff specs as a top-tier Bay Area agency.
• Transparent fixed pricing. No hourly invoices, no scope-creep surprises. You know the total before we start.

USD pricing model

All projects are quoted as fixed fee in USD, paid 50% upfront / 50% on delivery (or split into milestones for projects > $20K). No hourly invoices. If scope changes mid-project — we re-quote, you approve in writing, and the change is added with a clear delta.

Indicative ranges to set expectations (every quote is bespoke, but these brackets are realistic):

• UI/UX design — landing or simple website (4-6 weeks). $8,000–18,000. Bay Area agency equivalent: $30,000–80,000.
• Corporate website — full design + dev (8-12 weeks). $20,000–45,000. Bay Area agency equivalent: $80,000–250,000.
• B2B SaaS / web app — design + frontend + backend (16-28 weeks). $50,000–180,000.
• UX audit (2-3 weeks). $4,000–9,000.
• Branding — full identity system (8-12 weeks). $12,000–30,000.
• SEO retainer (3-6 months minimum). $2,500–6,000/month.
• Fractional CPO / consulting (15-20 hrs/month, 6+ months). $4,000–8,000/month.

Discounts apply when you bundle services (e.g. design + development + SEO together) — typically 15-25% vs. ordering each separately.

How the async workflow handles the timezone gap

The 7-hour difference between San Francisco (EST/EDT) and Kyiv (EET/EEST) is the biggest concern most Bay Area clients raise — and it's the easiest to solve. The honest answer: most Bay Area startup founders and product teams already work async with Slack-first cadence. The remote-Ukraine engagement just formalises what's already happening internally.

• Daily Slack handoff. When you wake up at 8am Bay Area time, I've already worked 8 hours. There's a thread in #project with the day's progress, demo link (Figma / Vercel preview), and 2-3 specific questions that need your call. You answer over coffee — by 4pm Bay Area time I'm already incorporating your feedback.
• Weekly Zoom sync. One 60-90 minute call per week, scheduled at 8am Bay Area / 3pm Kyiv. We walk through what shipped, what's next, what's blocked.
• Loom for async demos. Instead of scheduling a meeting to "show you what I built", I record a 5-10 minute walkthrough.
• Notion / Linear for tracking. Whatever you use, I'll join. No new tool to learn.
• Emergency Zoom on demand. Critical decisions get a 15-minute Zoom call within 4 hours of request, regardless of timezone.

Cases — Bay Area and US clients in my portfolio

My portfolio contains 130+ projects, including B2B SaaS for US founders, DTC brand sites for Bay Area and LA-based companies, and fintech dashboards for clients on the East Coast. For NDA reasons I can't list every client publicly — but on the discovery call I'll walk you through 5-10 most-relevant cases for your specific niche.

Other services for San Francisco businesses

• UI/UX design
• Web development
• Mobile app design
• Mobile app development
• Branding and logo design
• E-commerce
• CRM / ERP / SaaS
• SEO, Google Ads, SMM, email marketing
• UX audit, CRO
• Business consulting, product strategy

Other US and EU cities I serve

• Los Angeles — entertainment, creative agencies, e-commerce
• San Francisco / Bay Area — B2B SaaS, deep-tech, AI
• Boston — biotech, ed-tech, university spinoffs
• Austin — startups, gaming, tech
• London — fintech, B2B SaaS, creative
• Manchester — northern tech hub, sport-tech, MediaCity
• Edinburgh — fintech, ed-tech, data science

Full list of locations on the "Service Areas" page.

Ready to discuss your Bay Area project?

Fill out the contact form or message me through the channels in the footer. The first 60-90 minute call is free — we'll discuss your business, product goals, indicative scope, USD budget range, and timeline. If you have an existing site / app, I'll do a quick express-review and show you 3-5 issues that can be fixed in the first week, even before signing a full engagement.

Common mistakes Bay Area businesses make commissioning mobile app design

• Hiring on hourly rate. A $25/hour practitioner in Eastern Europe is statistically a junior at best. The 30-60% cost gap with Bay Area agencies isn't from hourly rate — it's from removing layered agency overhead.
• Skipping the discovery phase to "save money". A 1-2 week paid discovery is the cheapest insurance against a $50K mistake.
• Not asking about IP and ownership. Get this in writing before kickoff.
• Underestimating the value of single-contact engagement. Talking directly to the person building your product cuts requirement-translation losses by ~40%.
• Treating mobile app design as a one-off project. The strongest results come from continuous iteration, not handoff-and-forget.

2025-2026 trends I apply on Bay Area client mobile app design projects

• Subway-mode design — offline states, optimistic UI, aggressive caching
• iOS 18 / Android 15 platform-native components by default
• Apple Wallet + Google Pay first-class integration
• Push notification economics — focus on D1/D7 not vanity opens
• Accessibility from sketch one — Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, switch control
• Privacy-first analytics with proper App Tracking Transparency consent
• Live Activities + widgets as growth surfaces