Tapworthy iPhone Design and User Experience by Josh Clark
Summary: developing iPhone UI explained
When you start to developing an application, one that should conquer the world, you will probably ask yourself quite a loot of questions related to UI. How to design it the best, most efficient way. How to attract users. How to make users use it longer than just few taps after downloading it. You have here, basically, two options. Either you try to reinvent the wheel by yourself, or, alternatively, you can base your development on some others’ experience.
If you decide to go for Tapworthy, make sure you have quite a loot of time for the lessons. There are many of them. Josh goes through most of the topics that are important when it comes to UI design. He tries to provide you with the information that might help you develop better application.
Designing for iPhone is slightly different than developing for regular computer. You have to pay attention to things like screen size, memory amount, responsiveness, gestures, language related issues and so on. Josh covers these matters by providing relevant examples. However, there are few issues when it comes to this course.
First of all, sound quality is not good. Josh sounds like he was using some sort of phone mic all the time. I wonder why Josh haven’t decided to use high quality microphone during podcast recording. It would be much, much better. I can compare this podcast to many other podcasts you can find at iTunes and there is a huge difference. I think, that in case of podcast, you have to pay attention to sound quality. There is another issue here. Sections are too long. I found myself to lost concentration periodically when I was listening to the podcast. It is said that single part of the podcast should last ~5 minutes – after that time, listeners start to loos their concentrations. And this is the case of this podcast. After being involved into particular section form more than 15 minutes you simply start to focus on the environment instead of the podcast.
In general, I have mixed feelings. At some point I value this course, because Josh presents material that is worth mentioning. On the other hand, he presents it such way, that you can find yourself thinking about everything but the course while listening to it. Mind says ‘yes’ while heart says ‘no’. You have to decide for yourself.
Product page: http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920017769/