Saturday, April 20, 2013

What You Need To Know About Building iPhone App User Interfaces

There are several crucial questions you need to get answers for, before attempting to build iPhone app user interfaces. If we speak of interfaces, we are referring to the points of contact and interaction between the users and the iPhone apps. Simply put, if you see the screen where the iPhone users get to interact with the iPhone apps, that is the interface. It is also the screen where data may be entered. Manipulation of the app also takes place there. If the app is supposed to give a feedback or a result, it displays the said results through the screen.


App developers, when developing the apps, are inclined to build the user interfaces early on. We in fact have some developers who prefer to start by building the user interfaces, before proceeding to create the underlying functionality. But in some cases, the user interfaces are built later in the development process, when the underlying functionality of the app has already been completed. It depends on you how and when you would want to build your interfaces. However, there are bound to be some questions still that you must get the answers for before you can start. You will find that the answers to these questions will have a large impact on the final design of the interface.


Before building your user interface, you must first find out who will be using them and you have to ask who, specifically, the eventual users will be. An iPhone app that is targeted for kids and young children is bound to have an interface that is colorful so as to appeal to them. On the other hand, if the app you are attempting to build is for corporate use, you will have to use color carefully, and organize its \’screens\’ in a manner which ultimately makes it (the app) come across as a \’serious corporate app.\’ You would have to employ the same level of care if you are building the interface of an app that has senior citizens as the targeted users. They are not too keen on too bright colors and designs that could cause sensory overload.


Next, you\’d have to get an answer to the question as to the role or function that the iPhone apps are supposed to serve. This will actually be the main determinant of how you go about designing the interfaces. The ultimate objective here is to come up with interfaces that facilitate optimal collection of data from users, and optimal display of feedback to the users of the iPhone app.


Now on to the third question. In what type of environment are the iPhone apps supposed to be used in? At the most basic level, you will have already figured out that the apps are to be used in a mobile computing environment, using the iOS (which is the operating system powering iPhones). But you have to consider many environmental variables. You may, for instance, want to know whether the app is to operate within a browser (as a web-app), or if it is to be a stand-alone application, interacting directly with the operating system. A web app should have an interface that must be configured in such a way that it will be compatible with the chosen browser. You also need to ensure that it is synchronized with the other browser features, such as back, forward and \’refresh\’ buttons.


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What You Need To Know About Building iPhone App User Interfaces

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