iOS design: a case study
CocoaHeads, Antwerp, March 26th 2012

I would like to give
some context to this presentation. Theseslides are from a 30 minute presentation called iOS design: acase study.

If I make presentations, some
slides only contain afew words or images so the slides won’t distractfrom what is being said. This “web” version containssticky notes (like this one) that summarize what Italked about when displaying the slide during theoriginal talk.

iOS Design: a case study
is about how we built ConcertWall. Kristof, developer Johan, interface designer @ahigherugliness @wolfr_

Let’s go through the process
of designing ConcertWall,from initial brief to final result.

Introduction

My name is JohanWolf or
@wolfr_ on the internet

I read all day

I like to play video
games

I love to write

I have an interest in
photography

So this is my company’s
website, ( http://wolfslittlestore.be/ ). Notice how the graphics on thehomepage are @2x retina :)Under work you can see what I do: interface design,web design, branding and identity, HTML & CSS,photography and design for mobile devices.Companies evolve and this is actually a little bitoutdated - I specifically want to focus more on theinterface design part. The next website will reflect this!

Design for mobile

Design for mobile These days
I design a lot of interfaces for mobile: iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone 7 or for custom hardware.

First iPhone owned: iPhone 3GNumber
of iPhones owned so far: 3Favorite application: Tweetie (original)Most used application: ReederNumber of apps currently on iPhone: 104Number of iPhone apps designed: 4Number of iPad apps designed: 2

First iPhone owned: iPhone 3GNumber
of iPhones owned so far: 3Favorite application: Tweetie (original)Most used application: ReederNumber of apps currently on iPhone: 104Number of iPhone apps designed: 4Number of iPad apps designed: 2 I’ve always used an iPhone as my primary phone since it came out, now on my third one. Out of all platforms it’s my favorite one to design for.

Case study

Initial brief• Redesign of existing
Last Concerts iPhone app• Design of extra functionality to be added• Website: add polish

Proposal• Complete redesign and rebranding
of Last Concerts iPhone app• New marketing strategy: new website & app icon• Further ideas: great iTunes copy, offline ads (in concert halls)

This is the old Last
Concerts website. [http://www.lastconcerts.com/]

This is the old app
design. Noticehow it doesn’t look too bad (albeita bit standard) because thedefaults Apple provided areexcellent.

Wireframing &interaction design

To kick off the project
we sat down with a giantsheet of paper. I bought a big roll of paper in thepaper shop. Drawing together is one of the bestways to get to define what is going to be built.

Not going to bore you
too much with this part,but of course before designing or wireframinganything you need to know: * Why are we building this, for who…? * What are the goals of people using the app?

On the train home I
thought a bit about themarketing... the initial app name idea was“Gigfind” (rejected later). We kept the posteridea.

The next process was putting
everything Ilearned in the wireframes. This is my style ofwireframing where I put everything in a giantdocument. This one was made in OmniGrafflebut recently I switched over to Illustrator formaking these.

This is a detailed view
of part of the wireframe.Notice the notes that outline my thoughtssurrounding the screens I’m designing.

I generally use this template
called TouchGesture reference guide to show if there is anyspecific movement required on a screen. [http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1071]

This is another template (by
Teehan+Lax). I don’tuse it personally but I included it here show thedifference between the interaction design andvisual design. A “sketch” style is used here toshow that this part of the design is NOT aboutthe visual. [http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/ipad-sketch-elements-ai/]

interaction design visual design

Another technique that helps to
make the distinction is to make your UI elements gray and unappealing just to make sure you concentrate on the interaction design first.interaction design visual design

Sometimes it might make more
sense towireframe with a good kit of default UI and builda working app first, based on the default UIpatterns. This is especially true when you aredeveloping an app for Android, iPhone and WP7at the same time.If you are doing client work, this will meaneducating your clients, and possibly your bosstoo. The default UI can be implemented relativelyfast and is 100% tested. Going custom is hard.

Visual design & user interface
customization

Custom is hard. People always
forget things.

I often hit this iceberg
when I stray from nativecontrols. For example, Ajax interactions require morepolish than basic web pages. Custom mobile menusrequire more polish than the built-in version. If theteam doesn’t have the time to polish custom UI, it’soften better to stick to the boring native controls thatwork.Braden Kowitz, Designer at Google

Very simple example: a dark
interface

Let’s say you were to
make a “dark” iOSinterface. Maybe a developer would start with asimple grouped table view in Xcode.

You could set a new
background color, but nowyour other UI elements don’t match thebackground.

You can now go look
for ways to customize theother UI elements. In OS5 some interfaceelements can be given a “tint” color.

There are tutorials out there
that show you howto change the default UI completely. The endresult of most of these tutorials is mediocre atbest.

Even famous apps like Instapaper
don’timplement a version that is 100% “right”.There is no default list view for dark interfaces inthe iOS SDK, so a lot of iOS dev time is probablyspent reinventing the wheel (i.e. coloring anexisting UI element)The lines between items have too much contrast,the font for table views is supposed to be bold,and the frame of the table view should have morecontrast.Kudos to Marco for implementing a dark tableview when in Dark mode, which is a detail manyapps would forget. I am using Instapaper as anexample now but trust me, there are a apps outthere that are a LOT worse. I <3 Instapaper andby many accounts it’s a leading example.

How to make a grouped
table view thats fits rightin? Start by looking at the one that Apple made.The key to a great iOS design is knowing theplatform. Look carefully at how the default appsare built.

Work those details (not like
this app). Non retina graphicInconsistent languageNon retina graphic Highlight text should be whiteNon retina graphic

In the end, if you
want a custom design that isgreat, you’re going to need to implement yourown version of certain UI parts using customassets.

List item 1List item 2List
item 3 Here’s my version the grouped table view... you could say: not much difference? I say - fits right into iOS! [Download PSD: http://dribbble.com/ shots/233036-iPhone-list-PSD ]

list_view_top@2x.png list_view_middle@2x.pnglist_view_bottom@2x.png

List item 1List item 2List
item 3 This “dark UI” design works on any background - even disco style backgrounds (using PNG transparency to achieve this).

If what you are building
can’t be built with thedefault UI elements take a close look at what theleaders in a particular field are doing e.g.FourSquare recently decided to switch over toMapBox for their maps. [http://mapbox.com/]

True business cost of customization:
both UIelements took at least several hours & iterationsto get right

But if nobody took any
UI risk there would not be anyinnovation out there, so it depends on what you’redoing. This screenshot is from Al Gore’s Our Choice, inmy opinion the best e-book there is on iPad,interaction design-wise that is (then Apple took theseideas and made iBooks author... that’s life!) [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-edAGLokak ]This was done by Mike Matas, Bret Victor and theirteam. Two names you should definitely remember ifyou’re into interface design. [http://www.mikematas.com/] [http://worrydream.com/]

The Tapbots guys are famous
for their custominterfaces. Their business is practically based on thefact that their apps are 100% custom. I love how theythink of power users. [http://tapbots.com/] [http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/]

A common interaction design mistake

Web style form iOS style
form (better!)

It took me a while
to learn how to handle forms on iOS. Take a close look at Calendar (add new event), Contacts (edit/add contacts) and Settings to get a good grasp on what to do.Web style form iOS style form (better!)

Test your design (!) Use
Skala preview http://bjango.com/mac/ skalapreview/ by Bjango to view your design while making it. This should give you a better sense of what you’re doing than the huge retina PSD you are working in.

Design resources

For the Illustrator guys like
me check out theiPhone Vector UI elements template http://www.mercuryintermedia.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/iphone-ui-vector-elements

The Teehan+Lax PSD template is
your best friendwhen designing for iOS. It’s an almost perfectrepresentation of Apple’s UI elements in the formof a PSD. [ http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/iphone-4-gui-psd-retina-display/ ]

Design: lessons learned

• Custom vs. native is
a tough balance - stick to the standards where possible• “Coloring” UIKit makes more sense than re-inventing the wheel• Don’t think you can do better than Apple (unless you can invest the same time)

• Give your app personality
through: • Splash screen • App icon • App content

• Dont try to give
your app personality through: • Custom interaction design • Ignoring standards and good defaults (e.g. standard sizes of elements, 44px “touch” area)

Final designs

App icon

Iterations

Iterations Since illustration is not
my forte we hired an illustrator, Mattias Lundin from Sweden: http:// dribbble.com/inkgraphix

It’s easy to go overboard
with app icon designs.The guys from Spice Invaders made 50 variants...a bit too much.

You should read their “making
of” blog post onhttp://on-5.com/2012/01/the-making-of-spice-invaders/

Speaking of “behind the scenes”,
here’s anothercool one: http://www.repeattimerapp.com/how/

In the end we ran
with this icon, showing 2posters, a Woodstock reference, bold colors & areference to music through the notes & guitar.

Michael Flarup’s template is the
best templateout there for designing your app icon. Recently anew version came out “supporting” the newiPad. [ http://appicontemplate.com/ ]

Keep in mind that this
is the size most people aregoing to see your icon at, I can only advise touse a simple glyph/form instead of a superdetailed representation. Perhaps this design isstill too detailed.

These icons are super clear
and to me still lookattractive:

Assets & specification

You can’t just deliver a
PSD to a developer,there’s no way that’s going to work. This part ofthe presentation is about preparing assets andthe way I try to communicate the design.

Some tools to work faster
when making assets:Prepo is a Mac app to easily convert @2x imagesto regular sized images (“@1x”). [Prepo: http://wearemothership.com/work/prepo/]

Here’s the assets for ConcertWall.
Takes somework to export them all, especially crisp assets inboth retina and non-retina versions.

I use some automator actions
to make my lifeeasier e.g. this does about the same thing as thePrepo app (convert @2x to @1x)

This action just adds text
to multiple files, if youforget to add @2x to the names (like I alwaysdo :))

I write a spec for
the developer in which I explainwhich images to use where, which fonts to usewhere etc. You can’t possibly describe the wholedesign but basic stuff like which asset belongswhere is very helpful for a developer.

## Lists: thumbnailsUse glow.png for
the glow on last.fm images.* The thumbnails are 54x55 pixels* Use a black 54x55 thumbnail if no image can be found/images are stillloading* When an image gets loaded, slight fade in animation would be nice This is an example of a “specification” for thumbnails in lists in the Concertwall app.

A design has to be
communicatedMerely sending the mockups is not enough.

The app I use to
make these is called Mou(http://mouapp.com/), on the left side you writein Markdown, on the right side you immediatelysee your output. This way you can easilyreference asset images directly in the spec. Theapp allows you to export to HTML and PDF, sowhen you deliver the spec to the developer he/she can open it up in a separate window (e.g. ona second screen) and have it handy at all times.

Marketing: website

Here’s a simple way to
make a good lookingiPhone asset for your marketing website:

Download Mikael Eidenberg’s iPhone template,open
it in Photoshop, and edit the smart objectinside of it (http://www.mikaeleidenberg.se/page/free-iphone-template)

This is what it should
look like.

Now put your own design
in there...

Bam! A nice graphic for
the website.

Here’s an early version of
the website design. Igot tired of the “feature list” type design talkingabout how great the app is.

The new approach is simpler:
since the app isfree anyway we want to lead people to downloadright away. Why not let the app speak for itself?

This is the current version
which we are stilllooking to improve, we would like a “happy”version with a festival background.

This shows some of the
steps involved increating this design: photography, logo and iconcreation forego the design process. You can’tmake anything cool without materials.

Thank you!Follow me: @wolfr_ on
TwitterE-mail me: mail@wolfslittlestore.beRead the blog: wolfslittlestore.be/journalSubscribe to the blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wolfslittlestore

ResourcesWeb content mentioned in this
talkLastConcerts http://www.lastconcerts.com/Touch gesture reference guide: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1071The making of Spice Invaders http://on-5.com/2012/01/the-making-of-spice-invaders/Repeat timer pro case study http://www.repeattimerapp.com/how/App icon template pixel resort http://appicontemplate.com/Teehan + Lax iPhone 4 GUI PSD http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/iphone-4-gui-psd-retina-display/Teehan + Lax iPad sketch elements http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/ipad-sketch-elements-ai/Teehan + Lax iPhone sketch elements http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/iphone-sketch-elements-ai/iPhone UI Vector Elements http://www.mercuryintermedia.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/iphone-ui-vector-elements/Skala preview http://bjango.com/mac/skalapreview/Prepo app http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prepo/id476533227?mt=12Automator (continued) http://wolfslittlestore.be/2012/03/07/automator-continued/Designing for iOS http://wolfslittlestore.be/2012/02/29/designing-for-ios-continued/Mou app http://mouapp.com/List view PSD on Dribbble http://dribbble.com/shots/233036-iPhone-list-PSDMapbox http://mapbox.com/Other essential web content around the subjectApple iOS HIG http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Intro/Intro.htmlDesign then Code http://designthencode.com/Almost everything on the Bjango blog: http://bjango.com/articles/

If you liked this presentationCheck
out my previous presentations:Designing better user interfaceshttp://www.slideshare.net/Wolfr/designing-better-user-interfacesDesign for Developers.http://www.slideshare.net/Wolfr/design-for-developersonlineversionlong

Hire me.If you like what
you’re seeing, I can apply my knowledge to yourapplication too. Get in touch: mail@wolfslittlestore.be