Customer Reviews

Designing the iPhone User Experience: A User-Centered Approach to Sketching and Prototyping iPhone Apps

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I design and create iPhone and mobile apps for a living, so I've seen my share of carbon-copied iPhone HIG's with little thought about the user research, experience design overall device navigation. Suzanne's book is not this! She covers all of these important mobile user experience topics plus some. She starts you off with a classic interaction design approach, then dives into how these research elements apply to device design, and provides a great deal of exemplars to back up her thoughts.

For those already familiar with user experience design, Suzanne's discussion of the device capabilities, navigation and interface elements/interplay is equally as valuable. Suzanne's book actually changed the way I approached my soon-to-be-released iPhone App DrivingBuddy. You could spend hours looking for examples of well-designed mobile apps and diagnosing why exactly they are great, or you could just read Suzanne's book :)

This book is clearly written for a designerly audience, but also lays the groundwork for user experience newbies. I highly recommend this book to anyone tackling the difficult task of designing for mobile.

This book is a must-read for anybody seriously interested in understanding the nuts and bolts of good user experience design for the iPhone.

The fact is, there's a huge difference between designing the right thing and designing the thing right. And Suzanne Ginsburg hits the nail on the head as she expertly conveys what's involved in designing for the iPhone, or for any mobile device / app for that matter. She manages to demystify the front end of the design process, the part that most people don't know they don't know.

As the user experience migrates from being browser-centric to being app-centric, it becomes increasingly important for anybody interested in developing such apps -- clever entrepreneurs and enterprise product managers alike -- to understand the fundamentals of good design, the process steps, key distinctions, and best practices.

Designing the iPhone User Experience walks the talk by connecting what some mistakenly think of as abstract theory to irrefutable value of the practice outlined in the case studies she has included.

What I love about this book is:

- How Part 1 orients the reader to the capabilities of the iPhone from the point of view of somebody who might want to take advantage of them; and it does so in a way that inspires and challenges the reader to imagine the possibilities.

- The way Part II demystifies the aspects of the design process to increase the likelihood that you're going to design the right thing. That is to say, by presenting the essentials of user research and evaluating the competition, the author reminds us that there are ways to dramatically reduce the chances the reader (as designer) developer will go awry early on or that the investment will fall flat.

- The focus of Part III to help the reader formalize his or her approach to prototyping concepts for the iPhone app. This is usually where people start, so it's helpful for the reader to understand that knowing what the iPhone is capable of, in concert with doing a bit of up-front research (user and competitive) can save a lot of time, effort, and money. If the book has a weakness, it is that the author presupposes the reader has what I might, for lack of a better term, call the business case. But, alas, that is clearly beyond the scope of this work.

The later half of the book offers the reader design meat and potatoes; well, at least as they relate to iPhone app development. What book on designing user experiences would be complete without a healthy discussion of usability testing, Iterative design refinements, user interface design core concepts, and vis-dev (visual development)?

Highly recommended.

Browse the app store and you'll find a ton of bad iPhone application designs, and a few great ones. "Designing the iPhone User Experience" is more than just a catalog of successful apps or UI patterns - it gives you a set of tools for how to approach the design process from start to finish. What should I design? Who are my users? How do I make a prototype? How do I figure out if my design works? What about branding?

Much of Ginsburg's insights apply equally well to spaces beyond the iPhone as they do to this one device. Android, iPad, and web app designers alike will find a ton of value here.

The case studies are thoughtful and illustrative - not filler.

I have consumed more than my share of design books over the years. "Designing..." is one of the few that will help me both create a better product and a better process.

Blends an expert knowledge of what is unique to the iPhone with a deep expertise in the science of developing products that delight users of any platform.

Ginsburg draws upon her consulting experience to deftly apply key elements of the disciplines of user research, interaction design, and visual design to mobile apps. It's like having a team of experts at your fingertips.

Case studies with entrepreneurs in the trenches of iPhone app design (Foodspotting, Aardvark, Voices, lots more) illustrate how to apply user-centered design to various app styles.

Don't just release your half-baked app to lukewarm reviews - read this first!

What's been missing from the user experience literature has been a well-written, easy-to-follow, practical manual of user-centered design. Many books focus on either the patterns of design (narrow) or the philosophy of design (wide). Designing the iPhone User Experience, is both a a practical, beautifully illustrated, manual for someone ready to employ user-centered design (UCD) on a project as well as a valuable introduction to how UCD works in real life.

Ginsburg's case studies alone make for illuminating lessons of user centered design and should be required reading for budding user experience designers, developers, and product managers. The scope includes both development of new products from the ground up and refining an existing application.

This is the best user experience book I've come across so far. This book is invaluable in the grand task of making compelling user experiences.

A friend had this book and I got sucked into it just flipping through the pages. I'm not a designer, but the writing, design insights and case studies made it a joy to read. I had to get my own copy, which I couldn't put down.

Highly recommended!

The book outlines the steps and thought processes one needs to consider to create intuitive, easy to use, powerful applications. It addresses everything from early user and competitive research to graphic design and iOS conventions and mixes in some very interesting case studies.

Great book. A must read for all iOS developer's and clients.

Added to required texts for course on Usability and Interaction. Needed something practical and comprehensive for students as more and more is being moved to mobile environment. Would be better if called mobile instead of iphone. Some people are just as committed to androids and blackberry. But of all the books I reviewed for next term I chose this one for its practicality and case studies.

This might be a great book for those in a corporate or VC backed environment. Usability studies, prototyping, and usability testing, I remember all these from the dot-com bubble days. They did lots of things, but they never once helped me ship a product. Especially with iOS apps, you could probably build at least 2 or 3 Minimum Viable Products in the time it takes to do this research. Don't know whether to do a utility or productivity app? Build them both. See what customers think.

Like I said these processes might work in your context, but if you're an independent developer with limited time and resources the design approaches in this book aren't targeted at you. If you want some books that are, try The Business of iPhone App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed and Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps.