I have been secretly cooking up my app in the lab to be released in the summer and figured I would drop some tips.
1 - This is probably my most important tip - Avoid thumb stretching. I think it's incredible that app developers are seeing that people are using bigger and bigger phones, yet design apps that force you to stretch your thumb across the top left hand of the screen. This simply doesn't make sense because it hurts the user experience and its obviously ignoring that anywhere between 70%-90% of the planet is right handed
2 - Minimal is best. Don't try to create the next facebook, the wave is for simple and small apps that nail a small focus. Limit screens you have to flick through as well, max number IMO is 3...you don't want a cluttered mess. If you are trying to create a monster app, consider all corners of your screen for real estate to swipe across to get something else. Double tap, hold and swipe and others to bring up additional options. Keep it simple, keep it clean.
3 - Try to avoid the hamburger button - this can clutter whatever it is you are trying to hold behind the current screen. Come up with better ways to put things together, the hamburger button sucks and its time to move past that shyt. Facebook did, so should you.
4 - HTML5 will be the future for smartphone apps, its the talk I have with ex-google, webmd, ex-apple, and other smaller firms all the time - It's inevitable. It's only a matter of time that things are being worked all in HTML5. If you don't believe me, take a look at the firefox OS phones. FireFox OS doesn't have very strong support, but the fact that its all HTML5 is what makes the most sense overall. It will help solve the android fragmentation problem in the future and avoid Apple's monopoly in trying to police everyone going into their app stores. I applaud @cook and @Brooklynzson because they saw this a few years ago. Imagine still having to go through tapatalk to post?
Anything else? Ask away, @Codeine Crazy was interested and prompted me to start this thread.
1 - This is probably my most important tip - Avoid thumb stretching. I think it's incredible that app developers are seeing that people are using bigger and bigger phones, yet design apps that force you to stretch your thumb across the top left hand of the screen. This simply doesn't make sense because it hurts the user experience and its obviously ignoring that anywhere between 70%-90% of the planet is right handed
2 - Minimal is best. Don't try to create the next facebook, the wave is for simple and small apps that nail a small focus. Limit screens you have to flick through as well, max number IMO is 3...you don't want a cluttered mess. If you are trying to create a monster app, consider all corners of your screen for real estate to swipe across to get something else. Double tap, hold and swipe and others to bring up additional options. Keep it simple, keep it clean.
3 - Try to avoid the hamburger button - this can clutter whatever it is you are trying to hold behind the current screen. Come up with better ways to put things together, the hamburger button sucks and its time to move past that shyt. Facebook did, so should you.
4 - HTML5 will be the future for smartphone apps, its the talk I have with ex-google, webmd, ex-apple, and other smaller firms all the time - It's inevitable. It's only a matter of time that things are being worked all in HTML5. If you don't believe me, take a look at the firefox OS phones. FireFox OS doesn't have very strong support, but the fact that its all HTML5 is what makes the most sense overall. It will help solve the android fragmentation problem in the future and avoid Apple's monopoly in trying to police everyone going into their app stores. I applaud @cook and @Brooklynzson because they saw this a few years ago. Imagine still having to go through tapatalk to post?
Anything else? Ask away, @Codeine Crazy was interested and prompted me to start this thread.
