Mobile apps should feel natural and intuitive, and users should understand them quickly and easily. This means that effective interaction and interface design is crucial. However, few mobile app developers (or even designers) have had adequate training in these areas. Essential Mobile Interaction Design fills this gap, bringing together proven principles and techniques you can use in your next app–for any platform, target device, or user.
This tutorial requires virtually no design or programming knowledge. Even if you’ve never designed a mobile app before, this guide teaches you the key skills that lead to the best results. Cameron Banga and Josh Weinhold help you master the mindset, processes, and vocabulary of mobile interaction design, so you can start making better choices right away. They guide you through the entire design process, demystifying issues that arise at every stage.
The authors share hard-won lessons from years of experience developing more than one hundred mobile apps for clients and customers of every type. They cover important issues that platform-specific guides often overlook, including internationalisation, accessibility, hybrid apps, sandboxing, and what to do after release.
This guide shows you how to
- Think through your designs, instead of just throwing together UI elements
- Allow an intuitive design flow to emerge from your app
- Sketch and wireframe apps more effectively
- Reflect key differences among smartphones, tablets, and desktops
- Design for visual appeal without compromising usability
- Work effectively with programmers
- Make sure your apps are accessible to everyone
- Get usable feedback, and understand what it’s telling you
- Learn valuable lessons from today’s most successful apps
- Refresh your designs in new apps and future versions
- Discover new tools for designing more successfully
Table of Contents:
-
Chapter 1: A Look at Mobile and Its Main Players
- Chapter 2: Design for Humans, by Humans
-
Chapter 3: Dynamic Differences in Mobile Design
- Chapter 4: First Sketches of an App
-
Chapter 5: Finding the Right Design Flow
-
Chapter 6: Designing for Visual Appeal
-
Chapter 7: Working with Programmers
- Chapter 8: Making Apps Usable by All
-
Chapter 9: Designing for Simplicity
- Chapter 10: Gaining Valuable Feedback
-
Chapter 11: Refreshing a Design
About the Author :
Cameron Banga is lead designer at 9magnets LLC, a company he cofounded. He has worked on more than one hundred mobile apps for clients ranging from pro sports teams to educators to large corporations. His first application, Battery Go!, quickly became an iPhone best seller. His apps have been recommended by the New York Times, Fox Business News, Macworld, PC Magazine, and many other media outlets.
Josh Weinhold is assistant editor of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer magazine. He shared a National Press Club Online Journalism Award with other members of an msnbc.com/Elkhart Truth reporting team, and won The Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Award for legal beat reporting.
Review :
“In Essential Mobile Interaction Design, Banga and Weinhold do a great job of explaining what it takes to make a good-looking and easy-to-use app. The accessible language and visual examples of quality work combine to make this book a great resource for those looking to get into app design, or to take their craft to the next level.”
– Jon Becker, boom. reactive.
“Essential Mobile Interaction Design is not merely a book full of pictures and design concepts or one of straight technical drivel. Instead, it is a guidebook for creating human-based interfaces that feature simplicity, functionality, and value. Whether you have questions about how mobile design is different from traditional desktop design, how to work with a developer, or even what tools to use for the creation process, Essential Mobile Interaction Design demonstrates the answer for that.”
– Phil Dutson, Lead UX and Mobile Developer, ICON Health & Fitness
“Filled with nuggets of useful information, this book is a solid resource for the many aspects of designing a mobile app. I’ve found many recommendations in this book that we can use in our apps.”
– Lucius Kwok, CEO, Felt Tip, Inc.
“A well-rounded, easy-to-read book that provides a good grounding in mobile design and how to keep all those small details in mind so that your apps will really shine.”
– Dave Verwer, Shiny Development and iOS Dev Weekly
