The Iphone App Design Manual

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

"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.

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

If you are a designer who knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can easily learn how to make native iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps—and distribute them worldwide via the App Store. When combined with an Objective-C framework, web standards can be used to format and style content for iOS, using native controls and behaviors for an authentic Apple user experience. The Web Designer’s Guide to iOS Apps shows how to create apps using NimbleKit, the Objective-C framework featured on the Apple Development Tools web site. With it you’ll learn how to: Download and install the free software for creating iOS apps Use Xcode to manage project assets, test apps, and package binary files Implement standard iOS elements and behaviors for familiar Apple mobile user experiences Enhance your app designs with HTML5 and CSS3 Build a foundation for designing web apps that can be delivered to other smartphones and mobile devices

Learn Design for iOS Development is for you if you're an iOS developer and you want to design your own apps to look great and be in tune with the latest Apple guidelines. You'll learn how to design your apps to work with the exciting new iOS 7 look and feel, which your users expect within their latest apps. Learn Design for iOS Development guides you through the design processes that you can apply to design your own apps brilliantly. We'll start at the idea stages of your apps, and you'll see how you can analyze and apply the right design patterns for every app you are coding, use wireframing tools to take your ideas forward, and use Photoshop to create the visual assets you want to look great in your app. You'll understand why Apple have made the decisions they've made with the new iOS 7 interface and new HIG guidelines, and from that insight you'll be able to vision and create your own apps, on iPhones and iPads, that work perfectly within the new iOS 7 interface.

With the millions of apps in the crowded Apple iTunes App Store, it can be difficult to get your apps noticed. How can you make your app stand out from the crowd and get it the reviews it deserves? iOS Wow Factor shows you how to get noticed! It explains how to go beyond the basics and where to "break the rules" to give your users a "wow" experience! You'll learn to use standard controls, as well as to create non-standard controls and high-impact custom interactions to realize truly compelling app designs. Get grounded in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) so that you can appreciate all its wisdom. From that excellent foundation, move beyond the HIG and learn how to ensure that all your apps have that "wow" factor. Learn all about user experience (UX) design techniques, with and beyond Apple's HIG, and how to move your apps out of mundane design and into innovative user experiences. Examine the characteristics and constraints of the iOS platform and how to leverage its strengths to maximum effect in your apps. iOS Wow Factor explains what makes a successful mobile app design, and how to apply those principles of success to your own apps. Once you get the iOS Wow Factor into your apps, you can watch your app adoption rate increase and gain the traction it needs to succeed and earn a profit in the Apple iTunes App Store. Find out everything you'll need to "wow" your future customers!

Summary Usability Matters: Mobile-first UX for developers and other accidental designers gives you practical advice and guidance on how to create attractive, elegant, and useful user interfaces for native and web-based mobile apps. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Just because a mobile app works doesn't mean real people are going to like it. Usability matters! Most mobile developers wind up being part-time designers, and mastering a few core principles of mobile UI can make the difference between app and crap. About the Book Usability Matters is a guide for developers wrestling with the subtle art of mobile design. With each expertly presented example, app developer and designer Matt Lacey provides easy-to-implement techniques that instantly boost your design IQ. Skipping highbrow design theory, he addresses topics like gracefully handling network dropouts and creating intuitive data inputs. Read this book and your apps will look better, your users will be happier, and you might even get some high-fives at the next design review. What's Inside Understanding your users Optimizing input and output Creating fast, responsive experiences Coping with poor network conditions Managing power and resources About the Reader This book is for mobile developers working on native or web-based apps. About the Author Matt Lacey is an independent mobile developer and consultant and a Microsoft MVP. He's built, advised on, and contributed to apps for social networks, film and TV broadcasters, travel companies, banks and financial institutions, sports companies, news organizations, music-streaming services, device manufacturers, and electronics retailers. These apps have an installed base of more than 500,000,000 users and are used every day around the world. Matt previously worked at a broad range of companies, doing many types of development. He has worked at startups, small ISVs, national enterprises, and global consultancies, and written software for servers, desktops, devices, and industrial hardware in more languages than he can remember. He lives in the UK with his wife and two children. Table of Contents Introduction Part 1 - Context Who's using the app? Where and when is the app used? What device is the app running on? Part 2- Input How people interact with the app User-entered data Data not from a user Part 3 - Output Displaying items in the app Non-visible output Part 4 - Responsiveness Understanding the perception of time Making your app start fast Making your app run fast Part 5 - Connectivity Coping with varying network conditions Managing power and resources