Designing for iOS 7: Working With and Breaking Conventions

Designing for iOS7 is a whole new ballgame. The basic app design rules have changed as well as the entire iPhone operating system. It’s important to know the basics in terms of Apple native apps as well as current design expectations from the user.

Once you know these basics, you can begin to break the rules and create beautiful, unique designs. In this class, we’ll look at existing apps, specifically the transition of Tinder for iOS 6 to iOS 7, and walk through how improvements can be made when redesigning as well as reworking the user experience based on user feedback.

What You'll Learn

• Research. Be an avid user before you can considering what improvements.

• Identifying Improvements. Critique the design and the experience, identifying where improvements can be made. I’ll share user feedback and improvement examples from my experience at Tinder during this phase.

• Sketching. Take your ideas and improvement lists to paper with rough sketching.

• Wireframing. Finalize the sketches and clean them up in the wireframing phase.

• Design Mockups. Start thinking about how the design will look and finalize the entire screen. It should be “developer ready.” I’ll show examples of Tinder mockups that were thrown out and iterated on during the iOS 7 redesign.

What You'll Make

You’ll select an app that you use frequently but feel could use a an update based on iOS 7 design and usability standards. You’ll pick one or two screens and redesign the screens making design and usability improvements. Your project will include initial thoughts that lead you to redesigning the screens, sketches of the UI and how you’d like to improve it. Finally, you’ll create development-ready design mockups of your screeen(s) as well as an explanation of every improvement you’ve made and how it helps the user both visually and functionally.