When we talk about reducing costs and speeding up time to launch, standard components can unlock tremendous benefits when building and maintaining features. As a designer, especially if you are someone just getting started in mobile app design, it can be difficult to understand what “mobile standards” even are. Getting a handle on these UI options can help us be more efficient and effective as a product team. Choosing to invest in custom UI only when standards start to break down can help you maintain a high bar for experience quality without inflating costs to build and maintain components that already had a standard solution.
By design, notifications are disruptive. They make noise, flash on screen, and badge your app icons. Although push notifications can add value to an app, they can also be distracting and demanding of people’s attention. If people don’t see value in your app interrupting them, they are not likely to opt in. It is up to designers and developers to ensure we are designing meaningful and helpful notifications.
Both iOS and Android offer system tools that allow users to scale the text on their device up or down for readability. Supporting scaling text is an easy way to make your app usable for more people. Although developers handle much of the work, decisions we make in design can greatly impact the readability of your app.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) hit the scene promising fast and reliable experiences to users without having to use a web browser or visit the app store. They were the theoretical answer to the discoverability problem of native apps and the reliability issues of responsive websites. However, depending on the version of iOS or Android you are using when you access a PWA, you may have a relatively full featured experience or a severely handicapped one. So what are the advantages and limitations of PWAs and when should you use them?
From dark mode, to voice controlled everything, to the new Swift UI framework, we have a lot to look forward to this year! Here is the rundown on the biggest changes and most design relevant topics.