Alex Komarov's advice on apps

Author of iweekly product manager Plidezus

There's an interesting article on Smashingmagazine: Developers can send their apps to Alex Komarov's "critical committee", and they will give free advice and guidance on the usability of some of these apps.

Original: IPhone App Designs reviewed:critique Board and lessons learned

Some of the feedback from the Foobi and http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/29926.html ">units United" described in this article is very touching:

Foobi

Foobi, the app is beautifully designed, and the author admits to trying to "work beyond Apple's UI design, but too tired." ”

This is what Foobi describes on itunes: "Monitor and balance your diet." Then there are two major components of monitoring and balance. Alex points out that the app "is doing a good job monitoring function, but it's hard to find out how to see if you're in a healthy state." ”

There are two reasons for this problem: information is hidden and 11566.html "> information is poorly designed."

The above illustration means that the summary information is hidden. Although the above text is very clear to tell everyone to cross the line will enter the pattern, but so short presentation time and text, how many people see clearly? (Generally speaking, beginners guide This thing, everyone will skip it.) ）

Another problem is the improper design of information. I'm afraid it's hard to figure out what these colours mean. And there's no help button to look around.

Users can only view them according to weeks, and they cannot view their eating habits and structures in more intuitive graphs.

Of course, the funniest thing is the design of the app logo "when I downloaded the app, I felt like I'd been downloading it for a long time but it didn't seem to have finished downloading, as a result, I've actually downloaded it, and it's the icon. The status bar and the download bar look too much like ..."

The guidance of information has always been a big problem in app design, because the screen is really limited, many designers will try their best to fold the information in order to get more space, but many people do not have such a spirit of study. They are more intuitive operations, and folding information is almost as hidden as they are. And some of the public's operating habits (such as the head is the navigation bar, the bottom is the toolbar, the label bar) can not easily be changed.

There is another thing that is not appropriate but true, and I remember a friend who said that he had done a Flash ebook project, and also to do the iphone version, I reminded him that the iphone does not have Flash player, he said already, and then threw me a link. The answer is already there, but you have to let the machine escape and install the plugin, when a user to do this step, his reader may not be the choice of this geek users.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the novice to guide this kind of things, whether it is a game or software to see the people do not seem to be many, users think they can smooth operation of the software without guidance. So don't expect a few seconds of novice guidance to allow users to learn a new set of operating methods. This TAPTAPTAP company has done quite well in its series of apps:

The

renders for a long time, and this boot appears the first time they are launched, and will not disappear until the user has finished viewing it. The steps are clear, with only four screen fingers sliding, and the tutorial for an app is informative and easy to operate. Intuitive simple, no complex interactive guidance, each page to solve only one problem, using graphics to express, easy to understand. Units United

This is a unit conversion app, which happened to have recently made a currency conversion app, first to see how Alex rated the app: if I had a 456-step workout yesterday, and I wanted to convert to rice, then I would need:

go to the classification page select the type of data you want to convert select the kind of raw data enter 456 on the keypad to make sure you're not putting the two in reverse ...

Well, with so many steps on this 320x480 screen, who can guarantee that it won't go wrong? And your question is very simple is to ask 456 steps equals how many meters ... See what Google does:

Finally, Alex gave a speech recognition method may not be suitable for domestic users, but from this app example can be seen, the tool of the app must be simple operation.

Think of the previous design of the exchange rate conversion, switch the exchange rate is to click the flag out of a list to switch, but this will annoy the foobi of the information hidden too deep and units united operation is too complex problem----------------------- And that place can't put too many characters to write down the name of each country.

In fact, just start to get rid of the left version also feel a little regret, now it seems, simple and intuitive operation is the first task, can greatly reduce the user's threshold for use.

(some pictures are quoted from Smashingmagazine)

Source: http://mdchina.org/?p=171