A lesson in app design!

techdojo

Not one of my apps (I wish), however there's a really good article on applying the 10 basic principals of design to a simple weather app on Visual News.

http://www.visualnews.com/2012/06/28/wthr-a-weather-app-style-dieter-rams/

Definitely worth a look as well...

(10 principals copied here for reference as well!)

Teranth

Neat article I will be saving it for a reference , I sort of like the ideas behind it and think some of it can be applied to games as well. (Though 10 is probably not a good idea in game design heh unless you mean UI)

techdojo

I think 10 can be interpreted as just letting the experience be the game and not have lot's of useless fluff that's not needed. How many times have you played an arcade game and been forced to wait 20+ seconds to restart when all you want to is play NOW

techdojo

On a related note - I just had a weekly email from the App Design Vault and it struck a chord with me so in the spirit of open sharing (and shamelessly increasing my post count so I can get @GregBUG's badge), I've copied and pasted the contents here...

"You know how you use an app from Apple and then you notice something subtle. Like how cool the UISwitch looks also in iOS 5 or how the light on your Mac when it's on Standby makes it feel like it is breathing slowly.   For you it may be something different, but what binds you and me together is that those tiny little things make us smile. The fact that someone will go into such detail to give us those tiny moments of joy is impressive. That is why Apple is successful today.   Are you inserting those tiny moments of joy in your apps? This is what creates loyal users, users that will tell their friends about your app.   It doesn't need to be anything fancy, just a simple personal message in a UIAlertView can make a difference. Instead of writing "sorry there are no records found", change it to something like "bummer, I didn't find anything for that, try changing your settings and ask me again" .   This makes the user feel as if they are interacting with a real person and they feel more attached to the app.   What can you do to make your app put a smile on them faces ?"

I'd suggest anyone interested in creating great looking apps as well as games head on over to http://www.appdesignvault.com/

And no - I'm not affiliated with that website at all...

Teranth

@techdojo I rather like the ideas behind that article making apps more user friendly has come leaps and bounds in the last few years, but heh the MacBook breathing thing really hit home with me as I often thought it looked like it was breathing on my desk heh

Thanks for sharing

techdojo

Thought I'd add this that I came across earlier today,

http://bokardo.com/principles-of-user-interface-design/

I'd also recommend taking a look at the top level domain as it contains a lot of useful info

techdojo

Also this...

http://www.treysmithblog.com/the-fall-of-angry-birds/

Not sure I agree 100% or am entirely happy with the conclusion (or what it represents) but I think it's a worth a read and it might inspire a few ideas....