DesigningForIphone

=Designing for iPhone=

Planning
A good starting point for any project is planning and the iPhone is no exception. In fact when designing an iPhone app you need to dedicate more time to the planning stage than you may normally for other programming. You would be aiming to spend half your project time planning the app.

There planning process can be broken down into stages as follows:

Familiarise yourself with the iPhone - Live, Learn and Understand

 * Primary input is a touch not a mouse
 * Secondary input is the touch keyboard, it is small and not ideal so minimise the amount of typing ie. remember what they have typed before or preset text they possibly use in your app
 * Screen space and size is smaller than a desktop. Simplify your design, don't clutter or try and fit too much on one screen. Remember it is a mobile app, so they may only require limited features, don't try and make photoshop fit on a phone :) They want to do quick on the go things.

Conceptualise - Develop the core concepts and directions of your app idea
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 * Begin to brainstorm your solution…start with a new idea, brainstorm features. What is the primary focus and what will it's core functionality be?
 * Define your solution in an Application Definition Statement. This should guide everything you do when designing the app. This statement is a simple one or maybe two sentences.
 * Refine your brainstormed features down to what meets your Application Definition Statement.
 * Determine you users' mental model? How do your users see things? What is the object or subject, what action will your users want to perform. What do they want to get out of it?

Realise - Design and iterate using essential guidelines

 * Assess your application type - Content and Usage Grid - Serious tool-productivity/Fun Tool/ Fun Entertainment/Serious Entertainment(educational)/Utilities
 * Understand the basics - Navigation, Lists&Pickers, Tool Bars, Tab Bars, Aesthetics. Read the iPhone Human Interface Design guidelines. Recognise existing iphone metaphors, icons and the way users do things on the iPhone, so your app is easy to use. Great example of visual metaphor is iPhone users see Round corners and go whoo! I can tap this to do something.
 * Iterate with paper - Preliminary sketch of a blue print, flow chart with screens drawn or printed, sketches of user interfaces. If you don't want to hand draw maybe use something like wireframing app like Balsamiq, MockingBird or some of the free iphone stencils, graphics