Things I learned designing my first
iPhone app
Joshua Kaufman

At the end of 2008, I began designing
the Radar iPhone app.
Being an iPhone carrying designer, I
felt like I knew what I was doing.
It turns out the design process was a
great learning experience.
Here are a few things I learned.

First app? Stick to the iPhone Human
Interface Guidelines unless you have a
really good reason not to.
Emulate iPhone OS apps.

Say hello to
your bible.
Get it at
developer.apple.com

Some apps that have good reasons
Games
Music,
Entertainment,
Photography
Highly Visual
Utilities

Design for immediate access: if it's not
a button, most people won't know
about it.
Think: tappable first, swipeable second.

What can I do here?

Buttons make it clear.

How can I filter posts?

Buttons make it obvious.

Confirm actions that have unclear
buttons or make actions easy to
cancel/undo.
Be polite and don’t piss the user off.

Another quiz: name that button!
Set as
Easy Profile Like
Photo
Privacy Email Comment

Action sheets and confirmations are your friends

Saving So you can
content start where
in the app you left off
Content caching and saving the app state
are extra work, but they’re worth it.
Apps that don’t save feel broken.

Why? All iPhone OS apps work like this!

Tweetie saves the app state nicely.
Hey this is
where I left off!
Cool!

But when I want to read it while underground...

Twitteriffic gets it right.
Even when
there’s no
internet!
Hey this is
where I left off!
Cool!

Thanks!
@jmk
joshuakaufman.org