PBS for iPad

Background

• Platform: iOS
• Device: iPad
• Highlights: Strategy; UX; Development

Description

User experience is about ensuring an application is laid out intuitively, accounting for device ergonomics and following human interface guidelines. Our work on the PBS for iPad project included crafting the user experience, pair programming, and addressing the most problematic areas of development.

Ken and his staff were immediately able to offer me and the entire development team real advice — applicable, considerate and seasoned advice — about every level of the app we were developing…

- Kevin Doyle,
Product Lead – PBS for iPad

PBS for iPad became the top downloaded free iPad app in less than a day after its launch into the App Store. Later, in went on to win the coveted Webby award.

NFLPA

Background

• Platform: iOS
• Device: iPhone
• Highlights: UX; Design; Development

Description

Mobile application design has many challenges, including dealing with smaller screens, keeping gestures consistent, and accounting for various display sizes, orientations, and resolutions. The NFLPA project required an important additional consideration, which was to adapt the interface for people (namely, NFL players) with much larger hands. Unlike in other mediums, a failure to account for the physicality of mobile interface design would have resulted in a very unusable application.

Another often overlooked element of mobile design is branding. Most mobile applications have counterparts on the web or elsewhere. It’s important to keep visual parity and consistency across these mediums, while still respecting mobile patterns and paradigms.

Safari To Go

Background

• Platform: iOS
• Device: iPad
• Highlights: Strategy; UX; Development

Description

Native mobile development is more like desktop than web programming, requiring knowledge of operating system-specific features, memory management, and hardware capabilities. Additionally, it requires extensive on-device testing and more rapid release cycles to account for the various device and OS combinations.

The new version of Safari To Go for iPad is made of 100% pure awesome! Grab it ASAP!

- Review of the v2.0 of Safari To Go

Safari Books Online hired savvy apps as its mobile partner and mobile development team to relaunch their iPad app (which was a complete rewrite, with no code reuse). Focusing on a native look-and-feel and native mobile development, the ratings went from two stars to four. The app also reached #4 on the book category, ranking only behind iBooks, Kindle, and the Nook apps.

Various Customers

Background

• Devices: Smartphones; Tablets
• Highlights: Design

Description

Icons are the first part of an application that a user will see. They’re used to grab attention and entice someone to download an app. Icons that are particularly well-designed also usually earn a spot on the first screen, which means there’s a greater likelihood the app will more regularly be used.

Best practices for icon design include ensuring it accurately reflects the application interface, creating specific versions for each dimension, and testing how the icon will look on the device and in app stores.

CaptureNotes 2

Background

• Platform: iOS
• Device: iPad
• Highlights: Strategy; UX; Design; Development; Marketing

Description

Many companies invest months into designing and developing an application, only to have no marketing plan to launch it. Marketing is not putting it on an app store and tweeting it’s available. What most people don’t realize is that application marketing starts with the first step in building the app. By following a disciplined “marketing crescendo,” almost any app can launch with both press and customers excited to both download and promote it.

Holy wow! This is not just an app – this is the ultimate in note taking. Print, type, audio – you can even add .pdf documents.

- The iPhone Blog
Pick of the Week

As the full-service mobile partner of CaptureNotes 2, the savvy apps team was able to help generate a nice buzz leading into its launch. It debuted on the App Store at #18 in its category and had significantly improved sales compared to the initial CaptureNotes application.