Category Archive: iPhone
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Top 6 Help Design Patterns for iPhone Apps
Users of most of the iPhone applications often use first-time use help screens to help users learn how an app works. This help can come in a wide variety of styles: demos, tutorials, single screen overlays, walkthroughs, tips, or short screen summaries.
Below is a look at how different apps have leveraged these help patterns to introduce functionality to their users upon first use.
1. Demos
A demo animates a series of screens showing the primary functions of the application. This can come in the form of an animated walkthrough in which key interface elements are called out within each screen, or in the form of a short (up to 30 seconds) video demonstrating functionality.
2. Tutorials
Tutorials allow the user to tap, scroll, and/or swipe through static images of the application that point out key interface elements and interactions.
3. Single Screen Overlays
Single screen overlays serve to point out key interface elements in context of viewing a specific screen. The overlay is typically used to explain the use of 1-5 controls in a way that is quickly read and then dismissed.
4. Walkthroughs
Walkthroughs help users learn actions used throughout an application by guiding users to complete a task step-by-step. Walkthroughs help users accomplish a task quickly. By doing so, walkthroughs encourage additional application use and exploration.
5. Tips
Tips provide the user with descriptions of functions within an application. Tips are generally displayed one at a time, with the ability to optionally view additional tips. Tips can appear either appear immediately upon launch, or appear upon the user actively opening a tips screen or overlay.
6. Single Screen Summaries
Single screen summaries are a very basic way of introducing what you can do on each of the app’s primary screens. An overlay containing a very short amount of text appears for a couple of seconds that describes what the screen represents. This overlay is typically only displayed once upon first visit to the screen and does not return upon subsequent visits.
Read full article @ http://www.inspireux.com/2011/02/07/top-6-help-design-patterns-for-iphone-apps/
Apple ‘Reinvents’ our 12 year-old ActiveEdge UI
Apple - Active Edge UI
Way back in 1998, Jobe and I dreamed up a new type of interface – perfectly suited for mobile devices. We called it Active Edge. The patent was granted in 2002. It resembled the touch interface that is currently the rage, but was confined to the 4 borders of the display. The user could control the device simply by interacting with the bezel of the display. (Above are sample screens and a device prototype by industrial designer Laura Mahan)
An active edge user interface includes dynamically configurable flexible touch areas positioned near the perimeter of a display to support interactive communication between a user and a user environment for flexible active touch areas surrounding a display. The interface allows for multiple levels of sensitivity, texture, key travel, and varying widths of active touch areas based on the user environment.
As a bonus, the Active Edge UI contained piezo-electric plates to simulate effects such as physical bumps or accelerating scrolling. Alas, Nortel decided not to build this.
Today, Apple is granted a patent on essentially the same invention – 12 years after our original filing! Their ‘touch sensitive bezel’ is described as
An electronic device has a display and has a touch sensitive bezel surrounding the display. Areas on the bezel are designated for controls used to operate the electronic device. Visual guides corresponding to the controls are displayed on the display adjacent the areas of the bezel designated for the controls. Touch data is generated by the bezel when a user touches an area of the bezel.