Top Designing Mistakes of iPhone apps

1.  Over-Blown Visuals

Probably the oldest, yet extremely popular design problem is overdesign. Designers of
iPhone applications often tend to disregard common design and usability
conventions by offering users slick and shiny user interface designs that go
way beyond their standard look and also way beyond their claimed functionality.

Why make things look, feel and work complicated and why do designers like to re-invent
the wheel? The answer is simple: they want the application to be different;
look different and stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, a different look
isn’t necessarily helpful for application’s usability and functionality.

Whats wrong with the above design?

Some of you may say, “Well, nothing is really wrong with it. It’s beautiful.” I agree, it’s
pretty slick. But, there’s a catch: while beautiful, it is also inconsistent
with other apps. It’s different. Let’s compare this screen to the settings
screens of other iPhone applications:

The 4th design being inconsistent with other products makes it worse for two reasons:

1. Going against convention makes your application less
intuitive. Over-styled controls look different and require users to re-learn
how they work.

2. It’s a waste of time and money. The resources you have spent
to make your app look different, but not necessarily better, could have
been used much more effectively.

2. What about branding?

It is possible to
strike a balance between having a unique look but not over-designing. Here’s
one example:

Here, we have an over-designed text input field at the top. You can barely recognize this as a field when you first look at it. The version on the right hand side is much better.

A standard input field makes the screen’s purpose much clearer, while remaining
consistent with the application’s style and branding.

Here is another example by iFitness. Users are supposed to enter their weight day by day on this
screen. But you have to flip through the months and days with a horizontal
swipe to find the right one, and then you have to enter your weight digit by
digit using five separate scroll fields. And then you have to press the very
modest “Record” button, which you miss at first anyway and only find the hard
way: after you have lost data. Much better:

99.9% of users will want to enter today’s weight. This redesigned interface has one-quarter of
the controls. The screen space that has been saved can now be used to present
useful information, such as weight statistics. Date and time can be recorded
automatically, and the selection of the metric or imperial system of
measurement, which is not terribly important, has been demoted to a settings
screen.

The Yellow Pages app uses tabs, which work well on the Web, but standard toggle controls are more
familiar to iPhone users.

Apple has already done an excellent job of creating standardized controls. Losing some of that
functionality is almost guaranteed if you try to reinvent the wheel.
By earlier example:

 

If we take a closer look, we’ll see that one-third of the screen space we would have had is now
lost because of over-designing.

 

iPhone Apps Design – Best Practices

iPhone App Designing Conventions

Sizes of iPhone UI elements:

Icon Specifications for App
Store:

a) 29×29 – PNG, No Transparency,
No Layers, 72 PPI

b) 57×57 – PNG, No Transparency,
No Layers, 72 PPI

c) 512×512 – PNG, No
Transparency, No Layers, 72 PPI

iPhone
App Design Trends:

1.  Mirroring Native iPhone UI
Elements

It is always better to maintain the style of layout and UI elements that
the user is already familiar with. This saves time and energy. So it seems
quite convenient to use this approach when designing iPhone-applications. This
way the designer has to get into the flow of the OS and create an app that
requires zero explanation for the end user to operate. The custom app blends
into the iPhone environment giving the end user a consistent experience and
thus getting involved in the new app right away.

Stylization of Native iPhone App UI Design

 

Stylization of Custom Made iPhone App UI Design

2.  Very Simple User Interface

It is inconvenient for the user to read or see a lot of data
on a small screen even if the application design looks great at a glance. This
results in user dropout at the very beginning. Therefore it is very essential
to simplify the UI design.

 

Facebook for iPhone

Flicker for iPhone

Facebook’s first release did a great job of fitting a lot of core
functionality into a small space. The problem, of course, is in laying out all
that data and creating an intuitive interface. But their later 3.0 release
took a “springboard” approach to streamlining the interface, keeping it
intuitive and maintaining functionality.

Flickr is another example of how to achieve a good balance between
functionality, visual design and the small display area on mobile devices.

3.  Hardwarish Look

Many utilities are breaking out of the conventional iPhone UI
to take advantage of the device’s unique ability to respond to finger gestures.
Many of these have hardware-ish interfaces that users are familiar with but
come with perpetually shiny exteriors and clicks and pops that maintain their
newness from the first to one-thousandth click.

Where To?

Convertbot

Convertbot reminds us of the proportion wheel we all used in grade

school, except it’s more distinctive, original and creative.

Where To? This application looks like it belongs in a Mercedes. Plush

leather, matte-finish tactile buttons: quality craftsmanship. We can just
imagine how each button press feels solid, requiring the perfect amount of
pressure.

4.  Rich, padded and Pretty List Views

Essentially,
users are asking for a snapshot of what’s next, and then decide if they want
more information. One way to do this is with big pretty buttons. Large
and in charge, elegantly designed big buttons give the user a lot of
information through their color, icons and typography.

Delivery Status

Be Happy Now

Delivery Status

Check out
how Delivery Status uses appropriate colors on its big buttons to identify each
brand. And it uses typography well to establish a hierarchy of information.

Be Happy
Now’s
big buttons convey the “be happy” mantra
through a mellow color scheme and light, calm and clear typeface.

Nike’s workout application for women includes a nice visual
treatment and illustrations that match the brand. It breaks out of the
traditional UI just enough to communicate the brand without making it difficult
for users to understand the interface and how to use it.

5.  Layered Interfaces

Several
applications take advantage of the iPhone’s capabilities by layering the
interface and making some elements stationary and others vertically or
horizontally scrollable. This approach has several benefits:

1. It reduces the number of traditional navigation elements that
are necessary (i.e. fewer buttons help to avoid a cluttered interface).

2. It gives users a faster route to the information they want.

3. More screen space is available for information.

Tweeter

 

Barnes & Noble

Tweeter uses layers to organize information specific to each of your

Twitter friends. Just look at all of the information packed into this one
screen!

Barnes & Noble has a layered interface that allows you to

quickly slide through new releases at the top or dive into more categories
below.

6.  Icons for List Views

On small screens, icons
can give a huge boost to an application’s usability and navigation. Let’s now
take a look at some examples of applications that use icons to their advantage.

iStudiez

 

Top Floor

iStudiez: This application uses various educational metaphors as icons to clearly communicate the purpose of the application.
Excellent visual cues tell the student what’s happening today at a glance.

Top Floor uses simple and easily recognizable icons to
quickly guide users to their category of choice.

7.  Illustratioins in Use

Applications
that rely on graphics not found in the standard user interfaces are increasing
in popularity, as developers try to set their apps apart from the crowd.
Sometimes it works, but often it doesn’t. The more unconventional a design is,
the more likely it is to have usability problems.


Magnetic Personality

 

Mom Maps

Magnetic Personality is an excellent example of how buttons don’t
have to look like standard buttons.

Mom Maps is Another example of how illustrations do a

great job of pulling together the whole concept of an application.

8.  Using Gestures

Classic linear
navigation may look boring: a button that links to other buttons, which leads
you to a list of something, which leads you to such-and-such an interaction.
Not really spectacular. The possibilities for creative interaction in utility
apps are huge and largely untapped.

Mover exemplifies

 

ABC animals

Mover exemplifies how to use gestures for sharing contacts, photos and bookmarks. Open two devices, and flick the shared files from one
handset to the other.

ABC animals: This application teaches while it entertains.
Being able to trace a letter with your finger is another example of how the
iPhone responds to touch and movement.



Virtual_Villagers

Virtual Villagers: New Believers

Virtual Villagers is a famous casual game. You are a god rules over a village on Isola isle. Your villagers will have to survive and reach the certain goals for you to beat the game.

The goals of your villager usually involve solving puzzles and collect items. Of course, they must survive. In Virtual Villagers 5, their goal is to deal with heathens. They must convert the unbelievers to believe in you, their god.

The unique mechanism of Virtual Villagers is that when you turn off the game, or your PC, the game is still go on, just like a bowl of goldfish. If your village was thriving, leave it for a few days and come back to see lots of villagers dancing around. However, if your village was starving, leave it for a few days and come back to see lots of skeleton all over the place.

My Reception:

This small farm will feed your people
Virtual Villagers always famous for ease of access and this chapter is no different. Controls are easy and the game is challenging at first and start to ease out later. In the first few days you will have to work quite hard to get food. After you get the farm working, things are more comfortable.

Yeah, look like the same old Virtual Villagers, aye?
Virtual Villagers 5 is just another Virtual Villagers in terms of visual and acoustic. The graphic sprites are the very same to every other chapter of Virtual Villagers. Sounds and songs present in the game is also the same. It is good as every element is “Just right” but this shows lack of evolution and becoming boring.

However, the puzzle and game-play is, still, proved to be fun. Getting your village build up and watch as your villagers thrive is simply fulfilling. The chapter adds more challenging in terms of heathens, your villagers’ opponent. These people will chase your villager running but they never kill each other off. This make a game more challenging, sometimes frustrating, but not in an impressive degree.

Nightmare_Realm

Nightmare Realm

Nightmare Realm Collector’s Edition turned out to be a really nice adventurewise game. The feature that totally loved about the game is how the gameplay is interwined with the story that unfold right before you. The words might not render the idea.

There is no story and then game. You are a part of the story. The characters are talking to you, do some actions right there as you play. A big part of the game is animated, which creates a totally different feeling.

Unfolding like that, the story just can’t be told right away, so you will have to go a bit further and then a bit further in order to find out more details.

Basicly you are introduced to a family with a seven year old girl. First off you see how they lose the father in a car accident, then you witness how the girl is being kidnapped by some dark force creature. You play as mom who is desperate about finding her daughter.

You will have to do a lot of interaction with the objects and also characters. That part isn’t very difficult as well as the rest of the game. The expert mode offers more of a challenge, but I would say that this was the biggest flaw here for me.

There are also different puzzles along the way and some hidden object levels. Those are pretty typical, and the more experiences gamers won’t be surprized with anthing in there.

macabre_mysteries

Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s

Explore the Nightingale Theater, which was ravaged by a devastating fire 40 years ago, and uncover a dark mystery! After receiving a letter and a golden ticket in the mail from your grandfather you are off to see an amazing ballet performance. With fantastic graphics and an incredibly mystery, Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale will draw you in to a beautiful world. Explore Hidden Object scenes and more! This is a special Collector’s Edition release full of exclusive extras you won’t find in the standard version. As a bonus, Collector’s Edition purchases count toward three stamps on your Monthly Game Club Punch Card!
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Quality tested and 100% safe Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s Edition game is free download with no adwere, viruses or spywere moduls. It takes a few minutes to download Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s Edition game by using fast Cable/ADSL internet connection. Downloaded and installed version of Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s Edition game has a one hour free to play trial period and  then you can buy unlimited version of Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s Edition game for $13.99 only or uninstall it. To work correctly Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s Edition game need Windows 98/XP/Vista or MacOSx to be installed. Download this exciting Adventure / Hidden Object / Puzzle game Macabre Mysteries: Curse of the Nightingale Collector’s Edition, play and enjoy!
aika_online_combat

Aika Online for MMORPG

In its fantasy world, the demon-like Zerecas have corrupted and enslaved the monsters and creatures in the land in their plan to rid the world of all Humans. The goddess Aika created the fairy-like Prans to ally with the Humans against the Zereca. Will the humans and their new allies defeat their evil attackers or be torn apart by internal war?

Besides boasting the standard MMO features like questing, dungeon-running and crafting, Aika is heavily focused on PvP features. Aika is optimized for large scale Nation Wars where thousands of players can fight at one time. In Aika you can: fight for control over your nation during a Castle Siege, attack an enemy nation to capture their magical artifacts to boost your nation’s power, and participate in a variety of exciting PvP games in the battlegrounds.

 

Civilization

Civilization World? More Like CivilizationVille

When news of Civilization World first hit the mainstream gaming press back in 2009, the hype was such that you could have been forgiven for initially thinking that someone had found civilizations on other worlds. At last, many said, here was the messianic Facebook game for “real” gamers; here was a game that would send Zynga fleeing madly down its perfect CityVille streets. The truth, of course, is a little more complex.
In theory many of the basic trappings of Sid Meier’s Civilization are here. You start out in the year 4,000 B.C., and you toil your way to the near future by properly harnessing the resources of your workers, artists, scientists, and the like. As you expand, you gather the “Great People” necessary to build Wonders (such as the Library at Alexandria), and you earn points that allow you to increase your population, research new technologies, or lead your people to war.
The key difference is the setting. In CivWorld, you only have complete control over a single city-state. A series of tutorials assist you in building your first houses and crops, and you’ll learn to alter the former to produce more of a resource you may be lacking. (For example, if you’re strapped for gold, you should kick out those artists and fill their houses with merchants.) You’ll also find your gameplay limited by your “harvests,” which count as CivWorld‘s interpretation of energy. In an entirely welcome twist, you can play the game’s market by buying resources when the demand is low and selling them when it’s high.

 

Civilization World
Here’s where Civilization World gets interesting. While CivWorld doesn’t allow you to forge your own empires, it does allow you to build them through the help of other players by allying your city-state with a civilization. This doesn’t mean that you need to spam your friends for gifted items; instead, civilizations allow players to finish projects faster by pooling resources together in real time or voting on issues such as going to war.
CivWorld excels in its social features. If you play one of the mini-games to earn Great People, for example, you might find yourself racing against several others players to solve a jumbled image of one of Cassius Coolidge’s paintings of dogs playing poker for the most points. A twist on the social gaming linchpin of visiting your friends’ towns even makes an appearance: You can marry one of your citizens to another player’s citizens, thus granting a helpful one-time bonus.
If you haven’t already guessed, all this talk of points means that, yes, you can win the game. Winning comes down to which player has the most “Fame” points, and you technically don’t even need to be a member of a civilization in order to win. Once you’ve won the game, you can brag about any trophies or medals you won along the way and then start all over with a new city and a new civilization.

 

Civilization World
But would you want to? After one playthrough, I found myself struggling to jumpstart history for a second time. For one, the chat and messaging systems seem underused, which contributes to an uncomfortable sense of solitude despite CivWorld‘s outward social strengths. Unless you’re playing with people you know, there’s a good chance that you’ll never speak to other members of your civilization. For another, the military aspect of the game is profoundly disappointing. The card-game style battles drag like a broken chariot, and the thrill of winning is dulled by a realization that you can never truly defeat your opponent as you could in the Civilization games.
The result is an experience that feels more like “CityVille with Benefits” than Civilization. That’s not to say that CivWorld isn’t addicting at times, but social gaming veterans may find that the Civilization brand alone stands as its most fundamental departure from existing titles. Games such as Global Warfare already feature comparable versions of CivWorld‘s much-lauded “social civilization” model. And then there are the ostensibly beta-related issues: the cluttered user interface lacks the intuitive simplicity of Zynga’s menus, the game lags even on powerful PCs, and the current gameplay spirals into tedium all too quickly.
These concerns shouldn’t keep fans of Sid Meier’s legendary series from giving CivWorld a try, but it’s hard to escape the impression that this ambitious effort is anything but the pinnacle of Civilization.