Designing Mobile Interfaces: Patterns for Interaction Design

Steven Hoober · Eric Berkman

Nov 2011 · "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

About this ebook

With hundreds of thousands of mobile applications available today, your app has to capture users immediately. This book provides practical techniques to help you catch—and keep—their attention. You’ll learn core principles for designing effective user interfaces, along with a set of common patterns for interaction design on all types of mobile devices.

Mobile design specialists Steven Hoober and Eric Berkman have collected and researched 76 best practices for everything from composing pages and displaying information to the use of screens, lights, and sensors. Each pattern includes a discussion of the design problem and solution, along with variations, interaction and presentation details, and antipatterns.

• Compose pages so that information is easy to locate and manipulate
• Provide labels and visual cues appropriate for your app’s users
• Use information control widgets to help users quickly access details
• Take advantage of gestures and other sensors
• Apply specialized methods to prevent errors and the loss of user-entered data
• Enable users to easily make selections, enter text, and manipulate controls
• Use screens, lights, haptics, and sounds to communicate your message and increase user satisfaction

"Designing Mobile Interfaces is another stellar addition to O’Reilly’s essential interface books. Every mobile designer will want to have this thorough book on their shelf for reference."

—Dan Saffer, Author of Designing Gestural Interfaces

About the author

Steven Hoober has been designing interactive systems for over fifteen years, in a variety of industries, and for all types of users. He has been involved in mobile design -- and documenting the process, principles and patterns -- for the past decade, working with everyone from startups to large operators.

Eric Berkman is an Interaction Designer and Experience Architect at Digital Eskimo, a leading user-centered design agency whose projects involve inspiring change. Eric's design career has included developing mobile UI experiences for global telecommunications companies, branding and packaging design for Coca-Cola, Miller Brewing Company and Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and interactive museum exhibitions. His expertise and interests focus on a user-centric, participatory design approach to create meaningful individual, social, and cultural interactions. He has both a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design and a Masters in Interaction Design from the University of Kansas. He currently resides in Sydney, Australia.