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Design Trends For Mobile – Part 6: Location, Location, Location

Design Trends For Mobile – Part 6 – Location.pdf

Design Trends in Mobile

After only a few years the mobile landscape has generated a selection of trends and UX that have now become best practice in mobile design and an essential skill-set for the experienced UI designer. And as a UX designer you should be aware of these experiences and how best to incorporate them into your design decisions.

Location, location, location

Not only discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereabouts of a friend or employee, location services can include parcel and vehicle tracking, mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based on their current location. They include personalised weather services and even location-based games. They are an example of telecommunication convergence.

By 2010, location-based services power Mobile Local Search to enable the search and discovery of persons, places, and things within an identifiable space defined by distinct parameters. These parameters are evolving. Today they include social networks, individuals, cities, neighborhoods, landmarks, and actions that are relevant to the searcher’s past, current, and future location.

Design Trends For Mobile – Part 6 – Location.pdf

This is part of a 12 point examination of broad design principles russellwebbdesign generated for the design community. Please contact us further to discuss if your brand (ot it’s design) can really wants to benefit from effective communication and good graphic design: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

If this, or any other post has peaked your interest, please leave your comments below

21/02/2012
Design Trends For Mobile – Part 5: Minimise The Taps
Design Trends For Mobile – Part 5 – Minimise The Taps.pdf

Design Trends in Mobile

This is the 5th part in a series of trends that I have witnessed in the design world. When designing, design for short bursts of activity similar to how people use phones across the board—in short bursts of activity. Users probably won’t sit for an hours going through your masterpiece, they will take bite-sized chunks and digest it at their will. These trends and UX have now become best practice in mobile design and an essential skill-set for the experienced UI designer.

It’s best to minimise your grand concepts to a simple set of options that gets the job done.
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Less functionality = Simple user interface = Easily perceived and understood
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Minimise The Taps

Limit your options and lead users through a series of simple choices, limiting options to 5-7 big links at any stage. Effectively holding the users hand and guiding them through is a specialism that all UX designers need to master.

Design Trends For Mobile – Part 5 – Minimise The Taps.pdf

This is but part of an examination of broad design principles russellwebbdesign generated for the design community. Please contact us further to discuss if your brand (or it’s design) can really wants to benefit from effective communication and good graphic design: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

If this, or any other post has peaked your interest, please leave your comments below
14/02/2012
Design Trends For Mobile – Part 4: Interactive Feedback

Design Trends For Mobile – Part 4 – Interactive Feedback.pdf

Design Trends in Mobile

This is the 4th part in a series of trends that I have witnessed in the design world. These trends and UX have now become best practice in mobile design and an essential skill-set for the experienced UI designer.

Interactive Feedback

Provide obvious feedback for any action. Actions which take a long time to load need an indication that something is in progress. For each process, include loading states to provide the user with a timeline. This type of visual feedback is familiar to most users and you’d be wise to take advantage of it.

Basecamp Mobile does a great job of this by showing a spinning loading gif as it loads the next page. Remember, the desktop browsers have various indicators built-in to show that something is in progress. Mobile browsers don’t make it as obvious, so it’s important to build visual feedback into your mobile site and/or app design.

Design Trends For Mobile – Part 4 – Interactive Feedback.pdf

This is but part of an examination of broad design principles russellwebbdesign generated for the design community. Please contact us further to discuss if your brand (ot it’s design) can really wants to benefit from effective communication and good graphic design: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

If this, or any other post has peaked your interest, please leave your comments below

07/02/2012
Design Trends For Mobile – Part 3: Test Your Design
Design Trends For Mobile – Part 3 – Test Your Design.pdf

Design Trends in Mobile

This is the 3rd part in a series of trends that I have witnessed in the design world. These trends andUX have now become best practice in mobile design and an essential skill-set for the experienced UIdesigner.

Test Your Design

Try out your designs on as many devices as possible but remember innovation is not generated from focus groups. It is more than probably your cherished design, while amazing on stellar devices like the iPhone4 will degrade particularly badly on the trusty old Motorola Razr. You should be testing also for security and usability.

Use emulators if you have too, but there is never a better substitute than using the device itself. So, use up your favours with your friend at the local phone shop and test your mobile web site one, twice and as many times as you can.

You can, of course, test through the iOS Developer Program both over-the-air and in realtime, as well as determining black and white questions like ‘Does it work’ you can also test your designs effectivens:
- How easy is it to navigate through your designs?
- Is it obvious to the user which actions are available?
- Is the look-and-feel consistent from page to page, including font sizes and colors?
Remember the phrase ‘Don’t Make me Think’ – it’s a good reference point.

Design Trends For Mobile – Part 3 – Test Your Design.pdf

This is but part of an examination of broad design principles russellwebbdesign generated for the design community. Please contact us further to discuss if your brand (ot it’s design) can really wants to benefit from effective communication and good graphic design: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

If this, or any other post has peaked your interest, please leave your comments below
24/01/2012
Design Trends For Mobile – Part 2: Progressive Disclosure

DesignTrendsForMobile-Part2_ProgressiveDisclosure.pdf

Design Trends in Mobile

This is the 2nd part in a series of trends that I have witnessed in the design world. These trends and UX have now become best practice in mobile design and an essential skill-set for the experienced UI designer.

Progressive Disclosure

Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique often used to help maintain the focus of a user’s attention by reducing clutter and confusion. This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required for the task at hand. By disclosing information progressively, you reveal only the essentials and help the user manage the complexity of feature-rich sites.

From a designers perspective we should be using this technique when we feel the customer requires a level of hand-holding and is possibly unsure what they need to do.

For a full and extremely well documented explanation of the Progressive Disclosure see our friends at Wikipedia

DesignTrendsForMobile-Part2_ProgressiveDisclosure.pdf

This is but one part of a 12 point examination of the design principles russellwebbdesign generated for the mobile design community. Please contact us further to discuss if your brand (or it’s design) can really benefit from ‘best-in-class’ mobile design: info@russellwebbdesign.co.uk

If this, or any other post has peaked your interest, please leave your comments below

17/01/2012