Keep The Noise Down: iPhone

It’s that time of year when lysteria (ahem, the hysteria around creating a list) takes a hold. Whether it’s Five Trend Predictions for 2010 or a Top Ten Apps of 2009, it seems that just about everyone is putting out a list of some sort.

As I read over some scribbles this morning on designing iPhone apps, I noticed there were 10 individual points. How convenient. So straight out of my notebook comes yet another list =>10 simple things to consider when building an iPhone app.

1 Are you giving your audience something of value?

A successful iPhone application addresses real customers. For every iPhone application that is the result of a rigorous user centric design approach there will be one that fails to consider who the users are, their behavior, and how they will interact with the application. Keep asking yourself, who is your target audience and are you giving your target audience something of value.

Pinch Media findings from earlier in the year showed that repeat use of iPhone apps is generally low. The headlines were that only 20 percent of people that download a free application from the app store use the app the next day. And by 30 days that figure has fallen to less than 5%. For paid applications, the return rate is only slightly better. Much conversation that followed this was on how to give iPhone apps more stickiness. The conversation is better focused on how to create customer value. Give your customers value and they’ll come back.

2 Understand the context?

The iPhone provides exciting opportunities because it allows users to interact in more places and in a more engaging way, and at different times of the day. It’s important to understand the environment in which your customer may interact with the application. Consider what it means to your application if your target user will typically use it on an underground commute (with no network connection) or how they would interact with the application during the hustle and bustle of a department store.

3 Does the functionality help your target audience achieve their goal?

Don’t make the mistake of discussing what functionality to offer but what user goals you should serve for the target audience. This avoids common failings such as feature bloat, where features are placed ahead of better experiences. It is easy to create a rich feature list but the challenge is to understand the customer and pare down this feature list so that it does fewer things, better and in a simpler way, and all with the purpose of helping the users to achieve their goal.

4 Understand how people user iPhone apps.

iPhone apps are more transient experience than traditional online experiences. Customers use them briefly and move on. These considerations are vital when designing iPhone apps. Long complex tasks are unlikely to be completed as users are distracted or disengaged.

Even when these applications do address customers’ needs, and there is an understanding of the customer behavior many applications don’t make sense to customers because of a poor design execution. Key characteristics that are fundamental to the iPhone application include simplicity, ease-of-use, responsiveness and an engaging & delightful experience. So here’s the remainder of the list on design considerations…

5 Focus on the essentials

The screen size of 480 x 320 pixels provides obvious design implications. A usable application is one where the user can focus on the essentials. It’s about stripping out the unnecessary to create a simplified user interface which is easy to read. The design objective is to keep the user experience focused on the task. Screen clutter distracts and hinders the user from performing the intended action. This is less about minimalist design but more about focused design.

6 Is it finger friendly?

The iPhone browsing experience is a different beast to the online browsing experience. The iPhone is a gestural interface, with precision mouse control & clicks replaced by the finger. This enables users to interact in a far more natural and intuitive manner, responding to gestures such as tap, flick & pinch. Successful implementation requires supporting standard gestures such as tap, flick and pinch appropriately and providing immediate feedback. Gesture support manifests itself in the interface, as the layout is optimized for fingers, providing a finger tappable area for all tappable elements. Fingers don¹t have the same level of precision as a mouse, so make sure all interactive elements are sized and spaced to optimise gestural interactions.

7 iPhone has its limitations.

Users have high expectations of performance. Therefore design your application with bandwidth in mind. Desktop Internet experiences provide a visually engaging experience without the same bandwidth constraints, therefore images and rich media are heavily used. However, when it comes to mobile design, these rich elements can do more harm than good if they provide a sub-optimal experience.

8 Delight the user

iPhone apps are expected to be enjoyable to use - so whilst they are purposeful they need to delight. A delightful experience creates an emotional connection and a customer who is emotionally engaged will interact longer.

9 Is it intuitive?

From the moment the launch screen appears it must be immediately apparent to the user what the application does and instantly understandable as to how to interact with it. iPhone users are impatient and if it takes too much time figuring out what to do then the user will tune out.

10 Is the flow streamlined?

iPhone are seldom built to rely on long attention spans. It’s important that the user can complete the tasks in not too many steps.