Touching: how to design excellent iPhone applications

How to stand out from the masses of applications has become a constant topic for designers. Today, we will show you how to design an excellent iphone application from the perspective of users.

How do users use iPhone applications?

Ah! Beautiful dream! Sweet iPhone App designer dream! When a user is immersed in the applications he designed, the designer is dreaming that he is walking in the sunshine. Our fingertips slide, click, zoom, rotate, and fl on the screen, just like the beautiful step of the ballet girl. We quickly understood every icon on the screen and the meaning of each click; we quickly saw every button; we were able to control all the changes and gestures on the iPhone. We understand applications, because we learn how to use and immerse ourselves in them, just like Application designers.

Unfortunately, the story is purely fictitious. The cold fact is that most people do not have to think seriously or seriously about application design. The best application design is invisible, and the operation itself seems to be back to the background, putting users' tasks or entertainment at the center. Creating such a simple and effective design is really ten minutes on the stage and ten years of success. However, the habits of mobile users make such a design highly important.

Generally, you will not spend too much time on applications. Quickly click on the screen, do not want to explore all the details, and then switch to other applications. They use iPhone applications on a treadmill, in a car, or even in supermarkets. They only take a look at the screen, because they also need to take into account the changing multi-end environment-the road ahead, the date in the table, and the reality TV show tonight. They do not know all the standard touch-screen gestures and are not interested in learning new gestures. This is equivalent to a fierce struggle in the vast world where you are brilliant. We call it human contact ). Even if people concentrate on your applications, they may be interrupted at any time in crowded subways, noisy restaurants, or living rooms. That is to say, people only use one hand to operate your application. They only use one eye to view the screen and focus only a part of your attention on the carefully crafted interface, this is totally different from what you see as a designer.

The application of this fuzzy version should be taken as a precaution. You should arrange the information on the screen more carefully. Use beautiful, big, and eye-catching visual styles and reduce input. In the next chapter, we will discuss these topics. In addition, the time and place when the audience starts the application will also tell you how they are used.

Get it done as soon as possible

The mobile environment prevents users from being concentrated. When users use the iPhone in such an environment, the process will be segmented and inserted into other activities. When a friend invites you to go dry ice on Saturday, you stop talking, enter the location you have made an appointment in the calendar, and then continue talking immediately. When you are at the post office, several minutes before the call, you checked the email, looked at Twitter, and your favorite website. This is the way to open the customs.

Excellent applications can integrate themselves into users' busy schedules. This requires you to focus on the efficiency of the interface, and try to do it with only one or two clicks. Of course, this also requires subtraction visually. The environment is so distracting that you can't expect everyone to spend time and energy learning the interface.

Of course, there are exceptions in everything. Some people will spend hours indulging in the game. Some people may spend a long time reading novels and e-books, or recording some ideas in memos. However, for games, e-book readers, memos, and other applications, the same person may only rush 30 seconds for the next time. This means that for such applications that have a long usage cycle, you also need to perform in-depth interaction and design for quick clicks. (From Page 32, you will understand the different mentality of using mobile apps .)

You are going to develop an application for controlling aircraft.

A box full of tools, you are just one of them

Why are users in a hurry? It turns out that users are eager to switch to another application. When designing your own applications, you will naturally focus on your applications, and naturally think that your users will concentrate on using your applications: but in this case, it would not be an iPhone, but a Super invincible notepad. You should be more aware of this as an iPhone user. All applications are just a long play, and there are many roles. And you are not the director of this drama. Not only will the user jump to other applications, but other applications will interrupt the running of your applications by pushing notifications. The call will be sent at any time, and the text message will pop up at any time. You may also want to copy the content in your application to another application or copy it back. That is to say, as an Application Designer, You must imagine that your application is not isolated, but in a neighborhood with all applications. Your apps also share mobile phone space with other apps, transfer information to each other, and occasionally fight against each other.

Bibliography

A user's iPhone has many applications, which also tells you that you must be aware of the role of your application. Perfect applications focus only on one job. The more out-of-the-box the idea of your application, the more confused your audience will be about when to use your application. Think of the iPhone as a toolbox with various tools. "Tools do their jobs ". Assume that you have many other tools. That is to say, your application does not have to finish everything. Select one of them, concentrate, and try to make your application simple enough, and then improve and continuously improve. In the next chapter, you will learn how to make your application do a good job.

Bored and changed.

When your applications coexist harmoniously with other applications, they sometimes have to compete with them. IPhone users will have a lot of applications, but few will remain faithful. If your application cannot satisfy their interests, they will change to another application without mercy. This also means that they will not introduce your applications to their friends (say goodbye to word-of-mouth marketing ). In the face of reality, users' attention to applications is faster and faster. You must do everything you can to improve the user experience to meet user needs. If you fail to make a good first impression, most users will not go back. Users of the application enjoy early adopters. They download about 10 apps every month, but they are rarely used or used for a long time. According to research, users usually delete an application within 20 times after it is started. Nearly 15% of the apps downloaded below will not last a week on the mobile phone. Only 1/3 of the apps will continue to be used two months after the purchase. Some apps are popular, but they use gimmicks to attract users (such as playing fart sound, fabricated iqtest, and ringtones). They will be deleted if they are not played several times.

If you want to develop a new graph application, it may have no impact on you. You may have expected that your application will only be played several times. With laughter passed, the task was reached. However, if you want to keep your app downloads growing, there is a bad news: According to a survey, nearly half of the apps are downloaded for friend recommendations. Loyal users spread over 10 million lines, but few applications can have large groups.

Double-click, zoom, and rotate. What is this?

If you are an iPhone expert and have tapped into all the corners of the iPhone, there is toutiao news: Most people are not the same as you. Take a moment to get into touch with normal iPhone users (if you want to be pleasantly surprised, you can look back at new iPhone users ), let's see how they know about standard iPhone controls and special touch-screen gestures such as clicking, swiping, and swiping. The iPhone touch screen is a revolution. This innovation makes iPhone use easy. Therefore, users are also interested in touch screen gestures. Indeed, even users who use the iPhone for the first time can immediately discover this obvious physical metaphor: sliding the screen, clicking a button, flinging a digital wheel, and dragging a map. You can rely on these interactions with confidence because they operate exactly the same way as objects in the real world. You can move it with a drag and a click.

Once you start to throw your tail, it is not limited to the use of click and slide, you begin to deviate from the masses. Even some standard built-in gestures have never been used by many people. In particular, it requires a multi-point touch gesture with more than one finger. The test found that many iPhone users felt difficult to operate when talking about multi-touch, even the standard dual-finger zoom-in or zoom-out gesture. Therefore, try to use a single finger, for example, double-click to enlarge the map. It is recommended that your application be optimized for single-handed operations. (You will learn on page 58