Transcript

Joey Rigor Kontak Mobile Apps March 4, 2016

Designing

apps that rock!

iOS

This post is about

the lessons we learned about designing iOS business apps.

The same concepts can also be used for building mobile apps in other

platforms.

your company is ready to embrace theOK, mobile

world.

A common challenge most companies face is how to transform a desktop 

system into a mobile app.

Now, where do we start?

Start with the user experience.

Wikipedia defines user experience (UX)

as referring to a person's behaviours, attitudes, and emotions about using a particular product, system, or service.

Forget about how your desktop app looks like

and how it runs.

Heck, that desktop app is already running for 10-20 years and you

already know the business requirements by heart.

Start from

scratch.

What you don’t know (and should know)

is how to integrate these business requirements

into the design of a mobile app.

Do not make the mistake

of just trying to fit the desktop interface to the smaller screen of your target device and then call it

a mobile app.

It doesn’t work that way. Really.

Think about the design.

The picky details and obsession to perfection is

what drives Apple designers and engineers to

create Great Apps.

Steve Jobs is known for pushing the design of Apple products to

extremes.

So how can we adopt this

discipline?

Apple’s “Human Interface

Guideline” is a good

reference.

The guideline is about how an app

should look like and how it should run.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/

To attain this, developers should use the same basic UI concepts and

elements in building it.

Apple just wants all the apps in their store to have the same exceptional user experience.

Building an app that

rocks

should capture the following core concepts:

Simplify the interface. Only use elements that complements each

other. Avoid adding visual objects that overwhelms the content.

The content should be the focus. Everything else is secondary. Your design should primarily consider how the content

will be shown.

Deference.

Don't overwhelm your screen

with too much unneeded visual

elements.

Before adding anything to your screen, always ask

the questions - Is this necessary? Will

it help focus the content?

Negative space also bring focus

and clarity to the content.

Negative spacing

(or blank spaces) gives breathing

room.

Clarity.

Picking the right colours and appropriate font can suggest which elements are tappable, highlighted,

neutral or subdued.

Colour and font are two aspects that makes or breaks your design.

This is the major area in iOS app design that Apple explained thoroughly in their

documentation.

It is also the most time consuming aspect of design - trying the best combination of

font and colour to your interface.

The function of icons

and buttons should always be

obvious.

Do not use an icon or button that users are not familiar with.

The objective of every screen should be clear.

The user interaction that goes with it should be easily perceived and self explanatory.

Users should know what to do next.

Depth.

“In real life, when you go to one room to another, you get a sense of motion and distance. That way

you don't get lost. That same concept should be applied to the user interface."

https://designcode.io/iosdesign

Depth is a very abstract concept, but at the same time very powerful.

Animations and transitions of screens are built-in in Xcode  (the development platform

for iOS) and you can execute it easily.

But use it subtly and don't overdo it.

Excessive animations will become distracting (even

irritating) over time.

Use it wisely to create an exciting and unique user

experience.

Your app should be

'fun' to use.

To summarise, the core design concepts to make your

mobile app rock are:

There you have it.

Clarity

Colour and font. Icons, buttons and

screen.

DeferenceFocus the content

Simplify the interface.

Negative space.

Depth

Animations and transitions.

Yup, I know these concepts are pretty

deep.

The next post will show how we use it to build our iOS B2B app.

Learn on, grasshopper. The night is still young.

AboutMe

My blogs will try to convince everybody to learn how to code. How to become creators of technology.

This became a passion as I see people using technology in their daily lives but have no idea how it works. Sadly, almost

all of us are mere consumers.

As a software developer, I have always been interested in learning technology and how I can share what I’ve learned

specially to others with professions outside my field.

This is part of a series of posts about how I can convince you to be a coder.

Stay tuned, grasshopper.

To know more about our company and other blogs, just click the link below:

www.kontakios.com

What now?


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