I had the opportunity to consult with CityDeals on the UX and Information Architecture on their new iPhone app. This was a unique and enjoyable project for me – I didn’t provide any of the visual design or visual assets. My involvement was purely on UX and the information architecture of the app.
Developing a mobile app for the iPhone is always a interesting challenge. The iPhone 4 has a super high resolution screen allowing for crisp, fine details. The “retina display” lets you make almost any design, since there are virtually no limitations on the dot-pitch of the screen. You can make text so small you can barely read it, lines thin and sharp, colors bright and saturated. It’s one of the most fun platforms to design for.
In contrast to the evolution of the iPhone display, the input resolution hasn’t changed since the phone was released in June of 2007. A 3.5 inch display is all you get. Doesn’t matter the resolution of the screen; if your fingers can’t easily operate the app, it won’t be a pleasant user experience.
With CityDeals, I was able to approach their app from the perspective of the user alone, not a developer. A prime example of UX user advocacy – I wasn’t involved in the development or visual design, just the feedback from an experience perspective. I don’t always get to be in that unique position, since I’m typically involved in development and visual design in addition to UX. But when I do, I welcome the chance to put down the mouse and stylus and focus just on advocacy.
For this project, I consulted in the form of written and visual feedback. I would screenshot a view out of the development app, and paste it into an InDesign document. I would then annotate each screen with feedback solely for that view. I did three written revisions for the app. The first was 21 pages, the second was 27 pages, and the third was only 6 pages. That’s a total of 54 pages of notes/screenshots.
Focusing only on the user experience and information architecture presented me with a uncommon opportunity to step out of visual design and concentrate just on experience strategy. This is the kind of work I love to do, making things more usable, more accessible, and a better product overall.
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