Erin Young UX

My little collection of design samples from iPhone apps & the mobile web. Learn about me.

[erinyoungux]

Move along, nothing to see here

As of about a week ago, this blog has been combined with my main one at erinlynnyoung.com - still powered by Tumblr.  Follow me there!

[erinyoungux]

...some of the main themes were time pressure, worry, risk-taking, embarrassment, and recovery from embarrassment. For me at least, this is what real life user experience design is like.

From Print to iPad: Designing a Reading Experience on 90 percent of everything

[platformsandpixels]

The best interface is none at all

Principles of User Interface Design

Great collection of 20 Principles, but I’ve extracted my top 10 list below:

+ Clarity is job #1

+ Conserve attention at all costs

+ Keep users in control

+ Direct manipulation is best

+ One primary action per screen

+ Provide a natural next step

+ Smart organization reduces cognitive load

+ A crucial moment: the zero state

+ Great design is invisible

+ Build on other design disciplines

(via platformsandpixels)

[fredericguerrier]

[erinyoungux]

Feeling inspired after reading A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design by Bret Victor.

“…claiming that Pictures Under Glass is the future of interaction is like claiming that black-and-white is the future of photography. It’s obviously a transitional technology. And the sooner we transition, the better.”

[erinyoungux]

Feeling inspired after reading A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design by Bret Victor.

"...claiming that Pictures Under Glass is the future of interaction is like claiming that black-and-white is the future of photography. It's obviously a transitional technology. And the sooner we transition, the better."

[erinyoungux]

I liked seeing this prompt today. When an app has problems, it’s reassuring to see that they’re working on it.

[erinyoungux]

I liked seeing this prompt today. When an app has problems, it's reassuring to see that they're working on it.

[katychuang]

(via A Lot of Android Phones and Condoms Share the Same Name)

[jcdunn]

Tip: Don’t hold users hostage to access app features. I uninstalled this immediately.

[erinyoungux]

HOLY. MOLY.

[erinyoungux]

Mashable's recent article, "10 Things to Plan for When Developing a Mobile App" offers some sage advice. 

Identify a minimally viable solution set: Don’t try to tackle the whole problem at once. Instead, companies should identify a minimally viable solution and start there. In other words, release a basic but functional app as a foundation, then take advantage of the efficient upgrade paths most devices offer to provide regular updates. This enables you to enter the market more quickly and refine as needed. Plus, periodically giving your users access to new developments ensures your organization stays top-of-mind.

[erinyoungux]

If you can get past the grammatical errors, Brad Frost's blog entry "Responsive Navigation Patterns" is a decent audit of popular techniques for handling navigation in responsive designs. 

[erinyoungux]

I've been questioned about the absence of a "home" link within apps for iOS. The iOS Human Interfae Guidelines advise against calling your app's starting point "Home" and the majority of well-designed apps seem to concur, most frequently relying on Back buttons labeled with the prior page's name. The Path app, in one of many interesting UI choices, uses neither the standard "Back" Apple suggests nor the "Home" link Apple advises against. Instead, it uses the branded "P" from its logo. What do you think about this implementation?

[erinyoungux]

The GetGlue app includes a search bar at the top of a list of Trending Shows. I realized while searching for a show that the UI wasn't functioning quite like I had expected it to, and here's why: Google has succeeded in raising the bar for search. I expect a search bar positioned atop a list to yield instant updates based on my inputs. This is probably a good example of a usability risk that wouldn't be clear from wireframes alone. Looking at the UI, it makes sense - but interacting with it, my expectation was triggered.

[erinyoungux]

"It's only realistic to expect even further UI diversity in the future. This will make it extremely expensive to ship mobile apps. "In contrast, mobile sites will retain some cross-platform capabilities, so you won't need as many different designs. High-end sites will need 3 mobile designs to target phones, mid-sized tablets (like Kindle Fire), and big tablets."

Jakob Neilsen's Alertbox, February 13, 2012: Mobile Sites vs. Apps: The Coming Strategy Shift (link)

[erinyoungux]

Designing for Touch

If like me, you find the lack of standards in mobile more scary that exhilirating, check out this read from .NET magazine.  The author explains both some fundamental best practices for touch design as well as how he arrived at them.  Useful info for anyone in the mobile space.

[katychuang]

Great Dashboard Designs (via Quora)