At the cusp of an important decision about how to move forward with the architecture and design of our mobile application, the team was deadlocked. Tech was looking for a design solution to mitigate architectural issues that were causing instability. Design, while equally concerned about app performance, wasn’t interested in making a quick fix—potentially adding superfluous UI elements—for the sake of expediency.
Creating a prototype is usually the most effective means of expressing a designer’s vision. There is a hazard in prototyping though that may cloud a designer’s judgement, and, ultimately, lead to biased and irrational decision making.
The best teams—the teams that win championships, build empires, and bring home awards—have one simple thing in common… Trust.
In a couple weeks I’ll be jetting to Columbus, OH to do a talk at the M3 Conference on prototyping techniques for mobile interface designers. In addition to a quick overview on why prototyping is essential for interaction designers, I’ll also do some hands-on demos of some of my favorite prototyping techniques and tools.
Since I’m a big fan of building prototypes, I wanted to spend some time testing out the latest mobile prototyping tool I’ve come across: Proto.io. I’ve spent about a week using the browser-based tool, and for the most part, I’m very pleased with the results.
The Apple iOS tab bar—that persistent navigation element that runs across the bottom of the majority of iPhone apps—has reached the end of the line.
Sure, you’ll still see it as a legacy interface pattern in many apps, and many iOS designers and developers will insist on including it in their apps. But, no matter how hard they hold on, people need to face the facts that the tab bar is dead.
