Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps 1st Edition

by Josh Clark (Author)

52 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1449381653

ISBN-10: 1449381650

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So you've got an idea for an iPhone app -- along with everyone else on the planet. Set your app apart with elegant design, efficient usability, and a healthy dose of personality. This accessible, well-written guide shows you how to design exceptional user experiences for the iPhone and iPod Touch through practical principles and a rich collection of visual examples.

Whether you're a designer, programmer, manager, or marketer, Tapworthy teaches you to "think iPhone" and helps you ask the right questions -- and get the right answers -- throughout the design process. You'll explore how considerations of design, psychology, culture, ergonomics, and usability combine to create a tapworthy app. Along the way, you'll get behind-the-scenes insights from the designers of apps like Facebook, USA Today, Twitterrific, and many others.

Develop your ideas from initial concept to finished design
Build an effortless user experience that rewards every tap
Explore the secrets of designing for touch
Discover how and why people really use iPhone apps
Learn to use iPhone controls the Apple way
Create your own personality-packed visuals

Ten Tips for Crafting Your App’s Visual Identity

Choose a personality. Don’t let your app’s personality emerge by accident. Before you start designing, choose a personality for your app. The right personality for the right audience and features makes an app irresistible and creates a bonafide emotional connection. Tapworthy designs have the power to charm and beguile.

Voices (left) has a Vaudeville personality appropriate to a funny-voices novelty app. iShots Irish Edition (right) creates a gritty dive-bar ambience for its collection of drink recipes.

Favor standard controls. Because they’re commonplace, the standard set of controls is sometimes dismissed as visually dull. Not so fast: commonplace means familiarity and ease for your audience. Conventions are critical to instant and effortless communication. Before creating a brand new interface metaphor or inventing your own custom controls, ask whether it might be done better with the built-in gadgetry.

A coat of paint. Standard controls don’t have to be dreary. Use custom colors and graphics to give them a fresh identity. This technique requires a light touch, however; don’t distract from the content itself or drain the meaning from otherwise familiar controls.

Wine Steward uses standard lists (known as table views in iOS) but creates a vintage ambience by draping a backdrop image across the screen. The app adds a parchment graphic to the background of each table cell, making each entry appear to be written on an aged wine label. The burgundy-tinted navigation bar maintains the app’s wine flavor.

• You stay classy. Luxurious textures applied with taste increase your app’s perceived value.

• Keep it real. Realistic lighting effects and colors create elements that invite touch and create an emotional attachment. They also provide subtle guidance about what your audience can interact with.

• Borrow interface metaphors from the physical world. Lean on users’ real- world experience to create intuitive experiences. People will try anything on a touchscreen, for example, that they’d logically try on a physical object or with a mouse-driven cursor. Besides these practical benefits, using an everyday object as an interface metaphor imbues an app with the same associations that folks might have with the real McCoy--a shelf of books, a retro alarm clock, a much-used chessboard, a toy robot.

• Don’t be afraid to take risks. Make sure your interfaces are intuitive, sure, but don’t be afraid to try something completely new and different. Designers and developers are hatching fresh iPhone magic every day, and there’s still much to explore and invent. While you should look hard at whether you might accomplish what you need to do with standard controls, it’s also worth asking, Am I going far enough?

The app icon is your business card. The icon carries disproportionate weight in the marketing of your app, and it’s important to give it disproportionate design attention, too. Be descriptive more than artistic. Make your app icon a literal description of your app’s function, interface, name, or brand.

Use a dull launch image. Disguise your app’s launch image as the app background for a faster perceived launch. Always cultivate the illusion of suspended animation when switching in and out of your app.

Be kind to new users. Provide simple welcome-mat pointers for first-timers. Beware of more complex help screens; they’re warning signs of an overcomplicated interface.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I'm blown away by Josh Clark's deep understanding of the iPhone user experience. This is an important read for everyone thinking about iPhone apps." Jürgen Schweizer, founder of Cultured Code

"It's rare to find a person like Josh Clark who speaks so intently to the topic of interface design and mobile devices." John Maeda, president of Rhode Island School of Design

"Having been completely immersed in iPhone UI design for the past 2+ years, and even writing on the subject myself, I was excited to review an early copy of Tapworthy, but didn't expect any grand revelations. Boy, was I wrong. Tapworthy not only summed up just about everything I think I know about iPhone User Interface design, but challenged me to think about the typical iPhone user in new ways. This book is an invaluable resource to ANYONE working on mobile apps." David Barnard, founder of App Cubby

About the Author

Josh Clark is a designer specializing in mobile design strategy and user experience. He's author of Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps (O'Reilly, 2010) and Best iPhone Apps (O'Reilly, 2009). Josh's outfit Global Moxie offers consulting services and workshops to help media companies, design agencies, and creative organizations build tapworthy mobile apps and effective websites, with clients including eBay and Nokia.

Josh is a regular speaker at international technology conferences, regularly educating designers, managers, and developers about mobile strategy and designing for phones and tablets.

Before the internet swallowed him up, Josh was a management consultant at Monitor Group in Cambridge, Mass, and before that, a producer of national PBS programs at Boston's WGBH. He shared his three words of Russian with Mikhail Gorbachev, strolled the ranch with Nancy Reagan, hobnobbed with Rockefellers, and wrote trivia questions for a primetime game show. In 1996, he created the uberpopular "Couch-to-5K" (C25K) running program, which has helped millions of skeptical would-be exercisers take up jogging. (His motto is the same for fitness as it is for software user experience: no pain, no pain.)

Josh holds a B.A. from Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass.

Paperback: 322 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (June 28, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1449381650
ISBN-13: 978-1449381653
Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.6 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 52 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #861,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #111 in Books > Computers & Technology > Graphics & Design > Electronic Documents
- #126 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Apple Programming
- #137 in Books > Computers & Technology > Mobile Phones, Tablets & E-Readers > iPhone

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Dave Shaun

Great insight

October 4, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The flow and content of the book was very thorough. I got some really good insight on how an app I want to develop can be more user friendly. It also go through several examples of current apps, some popular, to illustrate their point. And it also introduces the developers and their insight as to why they presented their app in a specific way. It was nice to see their initial layout/design as well as the final layout. Lots of tips and tricks to get you focused on how to present your idea so it relates to the end user who will be using a touch screen device. I found it helpful that they directed you to resources I didn't know existed.

I read this book on my Kindle Fire HD. And I was looking for information about interfaces between the user and app which, I believe, was fulfilled with this book.

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Ian Ippolito

Needed this book badly

May 17, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

As a long time web (and before that desktop) developer I thought I'd seen pretty much everything about interface design and knew it all. How hard could it be to do our new mobile app...it's just a smaller screen, right? Well, there are so many other design considerations that I never thought of/realized, such as where people's comfortable and uncomfortable thumb/finger ranges are (versus a mouse), etc. This book was a lifesaver in creating a great design, and I'm so glad I got this book!

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Giovanni Dienstmann

Essential Reading for every iOS Developer, Designer

March 25, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book is simply excellent. The author will take you through every single aspect of UX and UI design for iPhone apps, from the placement of buttons, colours of icons, custom gestures, feature focus, etc. I was reading it at the same time that I was developing one personal project app (WeSync - [...]), and could apply so many lessons from the book. For me as an iOS Developer it will definitely be a book that I will constantly consult.

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Amazon Customer

The first book you should read

November 24, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book helps you turn an idea into a realistic outline with no prior experience. I recommend this book even if you are planning to have an developer design your app for you because you will be able to explain exactly what you want.

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acerlover

should be in every developers library

September 9, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

finally! some guidance for developers as they design their apps...much needed (have a look at the app store for some real clunkers that could have used the advice and instruction from this book)

even if you have a design background you'll benefit from this book. well laid out, lots of examples and 'real world' writings. proving design is as important as the code you write.

2 people found this helpful

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R. M. Menon

Great book for mobile design considerations

March 4, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I am new to mobile world and was fortunate enough to have gotten this book. Have not read through the entire book but loving it so far! The book delves into the core design principles of working on mobile apps. Although the emphasis is on iphone, the same principles apply to other mobile platforms as well. I particularly like the emphasis on "functionality" and how the particular way folks use mobile phone impacts the way an app designer should think.

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Shawn G.

One of the best books for iPhone developers that doesn't have a single line of code

January 4, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

One of the best books about iPhone development that doesn't have a single bit of code in it (which is a good thing). This book is completely focused on making good design and interface choices when building your iPhone apps. As a developer with very little design skill, I can't recommend this book enough. It takes a practical approach to design that makes it easy to understand design principles and why you need to make certain choices in your app design. Every iOS developer should read this book!

2 people found this helpful

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October 23, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Don't get me wrong, this is a good book by a great author, but every single chapter says chapter one. This means you can't flip through to the chapter, you have to look the page number up in the front of the book. This is really annoying, this is unacceptable due to what they are asking for the soft cover version of this book.

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Most recent customer reviews

choran

Five Stars

It's really what I need. It was vary helpful. Thanks

Published 6 months ago

It's a bit outdated but UI/UX principles are still relevant today

Even though this book is a bit outdated (contains screens from old iPhones) overall approach towards building good UI/UX experience is relevant nowadays.

Published on December 9, 2015

jjfarina

Great Seller

Book came in great condition

Published on November 10, 2015

Perspectech

good good and reference for iphone software development, good examples for stimulating ideas.

Published on June 28, 2015

Stefanie Lemcke

Great help for non designers

love the visuals and explanations on all aspects of the app development. As a non designer working on an app I feel educated and aware of what needs to be considered.

Published on April 23, 2015

Elisabeth Kerns

Five Stars

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in designing apps, or teaching app design.

Published on December 17, 2014

David H. Glass

Good lessons learned hidden in repetitive writing

I did learn a few valuable lessons from this book although it is a bit repetitive and the author does do a lot of writing about things that are pretty obvious.Read more

Published on October 2, 2014

Joe Ramirez

Five Stars

Great book, good condition

Published on September 27, 2014

Roderick W.

App Development Intro --Must Read--

Nothing else to say, a must read for app developers, designers and so on.

Published on August 21, 2014

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