Programming The Iphone User Experience

Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch not only feature the world's most powerful mobile operating system, they also usher in a new standard of human-computer interaction through gestural interfaces and multi-touch navigation. This book provides you with a hands-on, example-driven tour of UIKit, Apple's user interface toolkit, and includes common design patterns to help you create new iPhone and iPod Touch user experiences. Using Apple's Cocoa Touch framework, you'll learn how to build applications that respond in unique ways when users tap, slide, swipe, tilt, shake, or pinch the screen. Programming the iPhone User Experience is a perfect companion to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, and provides the practical information you need to develop innovative applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, whether you're a CTO, developer, or UI/UX designer. Understand the basics of the Cocoa Touch framework for building iPhone and iPod Touch applications Learn theory and best practices for using Cocoa Touch to develop applications with engaging and effective user interfaces Apply your knowledge of Objective-C to the iPhone/iPod Touch framework Customize standard UIKit views according to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and usability principles Learn patterns for handling user experience concerns outside of the interface, such as network- and location-awareness

With over 100,000 iPhone applications and 125,000 registered iPhone developers, is it still possible to create a top-selling app that stands apart from the six-figure crowd? Of course, but you'll need more than a great idea and flawless code—an eye-catching and functional user interface design is essential. With this book, you'll get practical advice on user interface design from 10 innovative developers who, like you, have sat wondering how to best utilize the iPhone's minimal screen real estate. Their stories illustrate precisely why, with more apps and more experienced, creative developers, no iPhone app can succeed without a great user interface. Whatever type of iPhone project you have in mind—social networking app, game, or reference tool—you'll benefit from the information presented in this book. More than just tips and pointers, you'll learn from the authors' hands-on experiences, including: Dave Barnard of App Cubby on how to use Apple's user interface conventions and test for usability to assure better results Joachim Bondo, creator of Deep Green Chess, beats a classic design problem of navigating large dataset results in the realm of the iPhone Former Apple employee Dan Burcaw tailors user interfaces and adds the power of CoreLocation, Address Book, and Camera to the social networking app, Brightkite David Kaneda takes his Basecamp project management client, Outpost, from a blank page (literally) to a model of dashboard clarity Craig Kemper focuses on the smallest details to create his award-winning puzzle games TanZen and Zentomino Tim Novikoff, a graduate student in applied math with no programming experience, reduces a complex problem to simplicity in Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab Long-time Mac developer Chris Parrish goes into detail on the creation of the digital postcard app, Postage, which won the 2009 Apple Design Award Flash developer Keith Peters provides solutions for bringing games that were designed for a desktop screen to the small, touch-sensitive world of the iPhone Jürgen Siebert, creator of FontShuffle, outlines the anatomy of letters and how to select the right fonts for maximum readability on the iPhone screen Eddie Wilson, an interactive designer, reveals the fine balance of excellent design and trial-by-fire programming used to create his successful app Snow Report Combined with Apress' best-selling Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK, you'll be prepared to match great code with striking design and create the app that everyone is talking about.

"In her book Designing the iPhone User Experience, Suzanne Ginsburg takes a fresh look at cutting-edge, user-centered design from the perspective of designing mobile user experiences for the iPhone. Her book brings together everything you need to know to design great products for mobile contexts." —Pabini Gabriel-Petit, UX Strategy & Design Consultant and Publisher and Editor in Chief of UXmatters “It’s about time! Suzanne Ginsburg takes the best of User-Centered Design (UCD) principles and tweaks them with a dash of mobile and a lot of hints about what it means to implement the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for iPhone. Your idea for an iPhone app has much better chances of being accepted by iPhone owners (and by the iTunes watchdogs guarding entry to the App Store) if you follow even half of the suggestions in this book.” —Nancy Frishberg, Ph.D., User Experience Strategist and past Chair of BayCHI Given the fiercely competitive state of the iPhone app landscape, it has become increasingly challenging for app designers and developers to differentiate their apps. The days are long gone when it was possible to crank out an app over the weekend and refine it after receiving a few not so flattering user reviews. Users now have choices -- lots of them. If your app is difficult to use or doesn’t meet their needs, finding another one is just a tap away. To illustrate, consider the ever-growing field of Twitter clients. There are hundreds of variations in the App Store but only a handful stand out from the pack (such as Tweetie or Twitterific). For most apps, it boils down to one thing: the user experience. The same is true for countless other categories within the App Store; well-designed apps are more likely to attract and retain users. Of course there are other critical aspects of iPhone app development: the coding, the marketing, the customer support. All of the elements must come together. Designing the iPhone User Experience will help you tackle the user experience part of the iPhone challenge. Three key themes will be reinforced throughout the book: Know thy user, the Design Lifecycle, and Attention to Detail: Know Thy User Millions of people depend on iPhone apps to get them to work, find their next meal, and stay in touch with family and friends. Professionals of all kinds also rely on iPhone apps: doctors look up drug interactions; photographers fine-tune lighting; cyclists find the best routes. To truly understand how your apps can fit into their lives, designers and developers must learn how users do things today, what’s important to them, and what needs have not been met. Part II, Introduction to User Research, will introduce a variety of user research methods. The Design Lifecycle Award-winning designs rarely happen overnight; they usually only occur after many rigorous design cycles. To illustrate this point, consider USA TODAY's iPhone application, which went through at least seven iterations for the article view in their app. These kinds of iterations should happen before you launch your app, since it will save valuable time and money, not to mention the headaches a bad design could create for your user. More importantly, you may only have one chance to impress your users -- you do not want to sell them half-baked ideas. Part III, Developing your App Concept, will explain how to iteratively design and test your app concepts. Attention to Detail Most professionals know that attention to detail is important, but hundreds of apps fail to incorporate even the most basic design principles. This lack of attention is not merely an aesthetic issue (which is important) it also affects the way apps function. For example, a news article without proper alignment will be difficult to read, and a poorly rendered icon will be challenging to interpret. Apps with a razor sharp attention to detail will stand out because their apps will look good and perform well. Part IV, Refining your App Concept, will show you how to make to your app shine, from visual design and branding to accessibility and localization. Mastering these three areas will help set your app apart from the crowd. You may not have an award-winning app over night. But knowing your users, iterative design, and attention to detail are important first steps.

Get a solid grounding in all the fundamentals of Cocoa Touch, and avoid problems during iPhone and iPad app development. With this revised and expanded edition, you'll dig into Cocoa and learn how to work effectively with Objective-C and Xcode. This book covers iOS 6 in a rigorous, orderly fashion--ideal whether you're approaching iOS for the first time or need a reference to bolster existing skills. Learn about features introduced with iOS 6, including Objective-C language advances, autosynthesis, autolayout, new view controller rotation rules, unwind segues, state restoration, styled text, and collection views. Learn Objective-C language details and object-oriented programming concepts Understand the anatomy of an Xcode project and all the stages of its lifecycle Grasp key Cocoa concepts such as relationships between classes, receiving events, and model-view-controller architecture Learn how views and layers are managed, drawn, composited, and animated Become familiar with view controllers and their relationships, along with nib and storyboard management Fully explore all basic interface objects such as scroll views, table views, and controls Delve into Cocoa frameworks for sound, video, sensors, maps, and other features Touch on advanced topics such as threading and networking

The creation of apps for Apple?s iPhone is now a huge, and global business, with hundreds of thousands of developers, entrepreneurs and companies attracted by the potential rewards. But games, functional apps and promotional apps alike depend on attractive, intuitive design for their appeal, and most fail to find a significant audience. With this book, you?ll be able to turn your great app idea into a functioning design that is ready for coding, or apply graphic design skills to this exciting and lucrative marketplace. You will have a clearly visualised concept and a focused sales plan ? and your app will stand out in an App Store that is worth well over a billion pounds every year.

Anyone with programming experience can learn how to write an iPhone app. But if you want to build a great app, there's a lot more to it than simple coding: you also need to know how design and market your creation. This easy-to-follow guide walks you through the entire process, from sketching out your idea to promoting the finished product. Get to know the tools for developing your iPhone app Design a great app before you start coding Build a complex app with Xcode and Interface Builder Decide how to brand your app-then beta-test that brand in the real world Learn the inside scoop on how to get your app into the App Store Promote your product, track sales, and build a strong customer following

Designing the iPhone User Experience provides an end-to-end overview of the user-centered design process, specifically for iPhone applications. After reading this book you will know how to: Conduct upfront user and competitive research to inform your app's vision statement, also known as the "Production Definition Statement." Brainstorm, sketch, and prototype your app concepts. The prototypes covered take many different forms, from simple paper to scripted videos. Refine your app's user interface and visual design, using best practices based on established design principles. Make.

Learn how to integrate all the interface elements iOS users have come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, and sliders. In this edition of the best selling book, you’ll also learn about touch gestures, table views, and collection views for displaying data on a user interface. Assuming little or no working knowledge of the Swift programming language, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, this book offers a comprehensive course in iPhone and iPad programming. The book starts with a gentle introduction to using Xcode and then guides you though the creation of your first simple application. You’ll start with designing basic user interfaces and then explore more sophisticated ones that involve multiple screens such as navigation controllers, tab bars, tool bars, page views, and split views that are particularly useful on the larger screens of the iPad and certain iPhone models. And there’s much more! Beginning iPhone Development with Swift 5 covers the basic information you need to get up and running quickly to turn your great ideas into working iOS apps. Once you’re ready, move on to Pro iPhone Development with Swift 5 to learn more of the really unique aspects of iOS programming and the Swift language. What You Will Learn Discover what data persistence is, and why it’s importantBuild cool, crisp user interfacesDisplay data in Table ViewsWork with all the most commonly used iOS Frameworks Who This Book is For Aspiring iOS app developers new to the Apple Swift programming language and/or the iOS SDK.