Week 11 'Tap Worthy'

Tap Worthy Chp.9-11

Chp.9

When designing an app, the designer is not obliged to offer screen rotation. Working with an app that rotates though, involves a lot of thinking because all your features need to booth work vertically and horizontally. Portrait mode is most comfortable in the hand, but games, video heavy apps normally all landscape mode, or at least revert to landscape. Useful to think of the landscape orientation as a way to display content differently, not just bigger. Provide a different view of your app. Have options for portrait and landscape keyboards, younger people tend to use both with ease, while older generations struggle with landscape mode more. The designer when going from portrait to landscape can basically throw out the portrait mode and replace it with completely new content. Users might not know your app can rotate because like a gesture it is invisible. Nav bars get squished when going to landscape mode.

Chp.10

How does your app communicate to its users, lots of ways an app can get its message across, and the voice and method the designer chooses has both a practical and personal impact. Alerts better be worth it because it stops the user from being able to use the app until the alert is completed. Alerts can be used when asking for permission, needing assistance to complete a task, or letting the user know an error occurred. Do not waste space on alerts, be direct and don't repeat words in the text area, title, or button. Notifications deliver important information in real time. Make indications that something is going through if a function takes a few moments to process, so that the user knows that their tap did something(like a spinning wheel). Also use visuals like status/progress bars.

Chp.11

Apple apps are isolated, cannot share info between one another, that can be good, allowing the user to focus on one task at a time. But sharing data, or moving info from one app to another is difficult and time consuming. Though in more modern times, compared to when this was written, I think there is more communication between different apps, and it is much easier to do things than before. Some apps are connected though, like photos, contacts, notes, etc. Some apps use a variety of apps to get a task done, the user might be brought to a different app to complete one thing before going back (like google apps).