This post is related to Interaction Design – Interface with a View course by Yaniv Steiner at Architecture University in Alghero.
Italian Version
Developing an application for iPhone means bringing different aspects together as a whole.
To keep in mind the whole process of development is very important within the project.
Despite this, however, one must remember that the user judges the service by what he “sees.” The phrase “For the user, the interface is the product” means just that: that the interface (physical or digital) with which the user interacts, is what affects the liking of the product itself. The fact that it is perhaps a product realized with an innovative technology will not make the users like it more if the type of interaction provided to the user is not satisfactory.
The development of an application for the iPhone begins obviously with an original idea.
In the first phase of development is necessary to spend some time defining the concept in a rational and organized way: what kind of application you want to create, what are the key features on which to work on, those that can be momentarily left aside (the time factor is crucial) and any additional work required to maintain the service in function.
The next step is to work on the Flowchart.
This is a document that visualizes and explains the logic of the application.
The Flowchart is an instrument used in very different fields, from software development to the industrial production of an object. That’s because the Flowchart has no direct connection with the content of what it’s meant to represent, but with its logic visualization: a sequence of steps linked by temporal or cause-and-effect relations.
The Flowcharts are very useful at the starting point of the design, where you have to define the general steps, the operations that the user would make and the feedback that he would have, but also in a more advanced stage of work, when perhaps it will be necessary to submit ideas to other people who will then work on it from a technical point of view.
At this level is not necessary yet to think about the style, but it is better to focus on the logical sequence of operations that the user will have to perform, trying to optimize everything so that it is simple and intuitive, using as few steps as possible.
In the special case of our application for iPhone we started from Magic Card, an application previously made by our professor Yaniv Steiner.
We then first realized the Flowchart of this application, defining its basic steps, and then we partially modify it to suit our own.
In our case, in the original flow, the displayed image was supposed to change when the motion sensor detects a vibration.
In the beginning we wanted to replace the second image with a video, but because of technical difficulties, this was not possible and we decided to use a sequence of images, frames after frame, to give the illusion of the movie.
Working on the Flowchart helped us a lot during the process because it allows you to have a clear idea of the work that you are going to do, avoiding unnecessary loss of time. It also allows you to communicate in an effective way your work.
Once the logical flow is fluid and clear one can move on to develop the graphic design and star with the computer code.
Computer code means the group of languages of informatics’ systems with which the designers and coder can program the computers.
There are many different types of languages, which have been improved over time to become closer to the “human” language.
Today, almost all languages are more or less readable with some “practice”, but in the past they were much more complicated, much closer to the binary language.
But even among the third generation languages there are those more approachable as the ActionScript, and the more complicated ones such as Xcode.
Languages such as ActionScript are very flexible and not that “straight” in syntax, on the contrary, the Xcode requires more precision in programming.
This difference goes on in parallel with the possibility of control that the language offers. With the Xcode is possible to act in a more precise way than with the ActionScript; it’s possible to act directly on the files inside the hard drive and change them. These kind of things with the Action Script we can be done.
Knowing the basics of computer code is important in shaping the image of the designer since it allows him to have a more complete picture of the development process in design projects that deal with this aspect, such as websites, software and interfaces.
In this way, even if he is not directly responsible for the development of the code, the designer can interact better with the coders, understand what is possible and what are the problems.
Another factor to be taken into account in creating an application, is the problem of intellectual property.
In general, with the appropriate national difference, intellectual property is a set of laws that in the legal field have the purpose to ensure the creators the authorship of a given product (physical, digital, music, etc.) they have designed, preventing others from taking credits for them.
Types of law such as copyright, trademark or patent are all part of the law of intellectual property but differ in the type of product that they protect and in the relationship they create between the author, his work and the use of it by third parties.
For example, copyright provides the author with the exclusive right of use, distribution and sale of his work for a certain period of time.
Intellectual property rights can also be transferred or sold to third parties.
The existence of these types of rights implies that we must be careful, during the development of our creation, with the material we use. For example in the development of the graphics is better not to use images from the Internet or at least find out if they are or not covered by copyright.
If you should use such images, as a whole or in parts, you will occur in a case of plagiarism, an offence punishable criminally.
Even in software for Apple this issue is present.
When creating an application for iPhone, for example, one must be sure that each image used is copyright free (otherwise you must have an explicit authorization to use it), but one must also consider the problem of copyright within the Apple itself. You cannot use, in fact, any kind of advertising image from Apple, nor its trademark or the name of Apple or its products (Mac, iMac, iPod …).
It ’s that this relates more closely to our application.
Unfortunately, as we became aware of this problem only in the final phase of the project, in developing the application we used official screenshot of iPhone.
Probably our application will be rejected by Apple for this reason.
But perhaps using personal screenshot of the iPhone screen, it would be possible to overcome this problem.
