How to Sell More Apps With Well Designed Screenshots. This article will discuss a critical component of App Store success: well-crafted screenshots. Your prospective customers WILL "judge a book by its cover", so taking the time necessary to create screenshots that sell is well worth the effort. This is the last post in the 10-part iPhone Design 101 series, so please comment to suggest any mobile design topics you would like to see in 2011! Let's take our pulse for a second. How do YOU feel about App Store screenshot design?
Screenshot design? Sound familiar? Take Your Market From “Hmmm. It’s funny how much time we spend shopping for products that set us back just a couple of bucks. How Do We Decide Which Apps To Buy? Before we get into what makes great iTunes screenshots, let’s talk about how snapshots or screenshots influence online buying decisions. The same philosophy holds true in App Store. The Sales Process Let’s say I’m traveling to New York and need to find the best app to help navigate the subways while I’m visiting. Wow. 5 Steps for Wireframing and Paper Prototyping Mobile Apps. This article builds on our previous article about the Mobile Design Process, digging deeper into paper prototyping and wireframing phases of app development. At the end, I’ll have a list of various tools you can use to create your wireframes and prototypes. Interaction design for mobile is a common topic of conversation among User Experience (UX) professionals, but what about those of us who only work with UX occasionally?
Many designers and developers are assigned projects that do not have the luxury of retaining a UX specialist, but are (of course) still expected to product elegant, intuitive interfaces. Wireframing and Paper Prototyping There has been a decent amount of discussion in the user experience community around the necessity of wireframing in web design these days, and I began to wonder “does this apply to mobile?”
Paper Prototyping Comes First There are some who claim “paper is dead” and tout the benefits of digital prototyping. Wireframes Come Second and Must be Shared 1. 2. Killer Tips for iPhone and iPad Icon Design. Icons are a crucial part of every iOS application. They convey the first impression of your app to prospective users and remain a central focal point to those who download the application. We all know how important it is to create a good first impression and build a strong brand with your design, and this tutorial will demonstrate 8 great ways to do just that!
1. Use Visual Metaphors This is a no-brainer in icon design, but if you go through the App Store, there are surprisingly few icons that do this well. For example, search for “tongue twisters” and you will see an assortment of icons like this: If you took all of the words off of these icons, how many would say to you “tongue twister”? I’ve enlarged the only icon that really does the term “tongue twister” justice.
What Happened Starbucks? Starbucks’ primary app has a great icon and app design, but the app that tracks cash on your Starbucks Gift Card pales in comparison. What else could they have done? 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. All-in Yoga 7. 8. Understanding Your App’s Target Audience. In Part 5 of this series, “The Mobile App Design Process”, I touched briefly on the the importance of identifying and exploring “who is” the target audience for your application. In this article, we’ll go beyond identifying the “who is” and take a closer look at how your audience should affect everything about your app from concept to launch.
The Audience Matters More Than the Idea It’s easy to get excited about app ideas. I hear great ideas every day, but in most cases they’re ideas that originate around a task or function, rather than a specific audience. The target audience is considered as an after thought, only important when formulating the marketing plan. The more apps I design and launch, the more I’m convinced it’s better to start with a specific target audience and create ideas based on the needs of that audience. Why Start With the Audience? "But my idea is great! A perfect example is our app, Doodle Bright. How to Fine Tune Your Idea Does Your Audience Need an App? The Pros and Cons of Apple Default vs. Custom Graphics. In the first article in this series,”Introduction to iPhone Design”, we briefly discussed why some iPhone apps use Apple templates while others are custom designed.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look and discuss why this is an important question from a design, development, and business perspective. What Are “Templated” Apps? In this series, I will use the word “templated” as a way to describe, in layman’s terms, the consistent look of the pre-built controls Apple provides for developers in their Interface Builder application. These controls aren’t “templates” in the truest sense of the word, but this is nonetheless a useful metaphor used in this series to compare Apple UI controls to “custom designed” controls. The image below is a screenshot from Apple’s Interface Builder application.
Why Use Pre-skinned controls? This is a common question from web designers who are accustomed to designing every button, box, and form on a web page from scratch. A few reasons: Budget Serious Tool. The Mobile Design Process. If you are a designer, the good news about the mobile app space is this: design is everything. Whether you're building a utility or a game, appearance has a great impact on both popularity and usability. Cluttered or disorganized apps are difficult to understand and hard to use. This isn't to say that a "serious tool" should be embellished with an overdone GUI. A great app design is one that will balance appearance with function. In terms of function, there are certainly some areas of app development that are not the "designer's job" per se, but still have a great impact on the design conceptually and in application’s creative direction. If you are working on an app, and these jobs are not being filled, find someone who has these skills to do so or give it a try yourself.
What is the Application’s Primary Task? Once an idea for an app has been generally scoped out, it’s time to narrow down the application functionality to the core of what the app does. Market Research Target Audience. How to Design for the Different Types of iPhone Apps. Welcome to the fourth installment in our series on iPhone Design 101! If you’re new to this series, be sure to check out parts 1 - 3: Introduction to iPhone Design, iPhone/iPad Design Templates, and iPhone Design Features. These articles will get you up to speed on what we’ve already covered and give you a taste for the juicy bits that are to come in this awesome series!
As a designer and/or developer you may be wondering “who cares about the ‘types’ of apps available, isn’t each app different? Every app has a unique audience and task, so what’s the point in studying the different types?” One simple answer: understanding your application “type” makes the process of conceptualizing ideas, specifying technical specs, and executing design and development much FASTER. The App Store has 20 standard “categories” of apps (everything from games to social networking) and periodically breaks out specialty groups like “games for kids” or “holiday cooking” apps. Serious Tools Fun Tools Fun Games. Designing Apps That Use All Available iPhone Fuctionality. In the previous article in this series, we introduced some basic iOS design specifications and templates. Now it’s time to explore what makes designing for touch screens and mobile devices so special! Unlike design for desktop websites and/or applications, the variety of ways you can interact with and get feedback from a mobile devices radically differs from its desktop counterpart.
Mobile apps aren't just pretty pictures; you're developing a piece of software. Designing for mobile is a combination of interaction and usability, product development, and graphic design. Think about all the things a mobile touch screen device can react to: touch, shaking, tilting, vibrating, audio input and feedback, geolocation, and time tracking. With these elements, design takes on an entirely new dimension. It's your job as a mobile designer to consider these features when conceptualizing how an app will work. It is Easy to be Average Gestures photo courtesy of Kyle Buza Tap Tap + Hold Double Tap Pinch Flick. iPhone and iPad Design Templates and How to Use Them. There is a lot of “process” that goes into designing for mobile devices, but sometimes you just wanna jump in and get your hands dirty! This post is designed to give you the tools you’ll need and the basic design and technical requirements to get you up and running quickly.
Standard Screen Sizes and Icon Sizes If you haven’t read the Apple Interface Guidelines for iPhone and iPad yet, you should. It’s a lot of information, but well worth the time spent to understand how Apple thinks about application design. These guides also spell out detailed specifications for screen size, icon size, and resolution. Next, I’ll address a few commonly asked questions and summarize these specifications in an easy to digest format! What’s the Resolution of the New Retina Display? The iPhone retina screen is a spectacular thing to see. You can see in comparing the two devices that the screen dimensions for iPhone 4 are unchanged from the previous model.
Photoshop Setup Specs: The Future of Screen Sizes. Introduction to iPhone Design. This post is the first in a 10-part iPhone Design series featured on Mobiletuts+. Every week, we will dive into a variety of aspects of how to design beautiful and usable mobile interfaces for iOS. To get a reminder each time a new post arrives in this series, be sure to subscribe via email or our RSS feed! Series Overview Are you a web designer, excited by the idea of designing iPhone apps, but unsure of how to get started? Or perhaps you've designed a couple of apps, but are looking to boost your skills with some fundamental knowledge of why we make certain design decisions for mobile?
This series is for both novice and intermediate-level designers who want to make a big splash in the mobile design space! The topics you can look forward to in this series include both hands-on techniques and examples as well as mobile related design theory. Designing for Mobile vs. the Web Can't I just start designing apps? Not really. Designing for the Web Designing for Mobile Mobile is a Blank Canvas. iPad Application Design. I held a 6-hour workshop at NSConference in both the UK and USA recently, focusing on software design and user experience.
Predictably, an extremely popular topic was the iPad, and how to approach the design of iPad applications. I gave a 90-minute presentation on the subject to start each workshop, and I want to share some of my observations here. Please note: this is about the user interface conventions and considerations which apply to creating software for the iPad platform (and touch-screen tablet devices in general). It is not a technical discussion of iPad-related APIs (which remain under NDA at time of writing in early March 2010). As I watched the iPad introduction keynote, there was one thing above all which struck me: That’s iWork (Keynote, Pages and Numbers) for iPad. It’s not just a big iPhone The iPad may be a larger version of the iPhone in terms of the hardware and operating system, but treating it as the same device would be foolish. The Missing Link Master-Detail Two Hands. iPhone App Icon Design: Best Practises | Pixelresort.com. Designing your application icon is a most crucial part of your success on the iPhone platform.
The App store with it’s more than 70.000 apps have become quite the crowded bazaar. As an interface designer i cannot but marvel at the emphasis this has put on the delicate art of icon design. Read on as i take you through some do’s and don’ts of App Icon Design. Other than being a self proclaimed iPhone geek, how do i get the nerve to post about ’best practises’ on this fairly new platform? Well first off, app icon design on the iPhone and iPod touch doesn’t differ that much from the general principles of universal icon design, which i’ve been involved with for a few years now.
Secondly, over the past year i’ve been working on iPhone interface projects left and right. I maintain a minimalistic app review site called appweek.ly that lovingly forces me to spend my good share of money in the app store and generally keeps me on my toes. Don’t include words Don’t standard gloss Simple is good.