Too many mobile apps — including some developed by large companies that should know better — are difficult to use. Michael Griffith, creative director at Bottle Rocket Apps offers these ten tips to help improve app design:
- Don’t simply port what you have to other platforms (iOS to Android, Web to iOS, Android to BlackBerry, and so on).
- Take advantage of mobile (especially smartphone) constraints to think creatively.
- Take advantage of mobile capabilities not available on a PC.
- Design accessibly.
- When showing mockups and prototypes to clients or users, do it on the device the app will run on.
- Beware metaphors.
- Beware oversimplification, where everything (color, weight, texture, and so on) looks the same.
- Design apps, not applications.
- Design for layers of experience.
- Make data travel to the user in context.
