In this article, Evgeny Khrolenok and Igor Mikheiko share their lessons learned while developing an app to help folks create their very own 3D stereo videos.
Read more…
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) has been running for 34 years, which is 6 years longer than The Simpsons. Like Netflix, Apple likes to drop a whole season at once. When it does, I devote that week and the following weekend to binge-watching as many videos as I can and trying out some of the new technology, especially as it relates to iOS.
In the past 10 years, a big portion of these conferences has been devoted to iOS. This is where we learned about the first iPhone SDK, notifications, share and today widgets, the iOS 7 redesign, iPad multitasking, and other iOS milestones. I was genuinely surprised with some of the announcements this year.
Read more…
The average American spends at least five hours per day on their smartphone. So, why is it so hard to make mobile ads work? Marketers toil over clicks and conversions on highly targeted ads, but users, tired of intrusive banners, keep installing ad blockers. With $100 billion in annual mobile ad spend at stake, someone has to figure out a way to fix this disconnect.
Read more…
Advanced website builders — the tools provided by Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, The Grid and more — produce websites that look and feel like they were designed and coded by humans. They’re also software as a service, which is a different business model than traditional, custom-developed websites.
So, should companies use them? At some point, will they replace custom development? In short, yes.
Read more…
For the holidays, the owner of (and my boss at) thirteen23 gave each employee a Google Home device. If you don’t already know, Google Home is a voice-activated speaker powered by Google Assistant and is a competing product to Amazon’s line of Alexa products.
I already have the Amazon Echo, and as Director of Technology at thirteen23, I love tinkering with software for new products. For the Amazon Echo, you can create what are called “skills”, which allow you to build custom interactions when speaking to the device.
Read more…
Imagine that it’s a hot day. The sun is out, and the temperature is rising. Perhaps, every now and then, there’s a cool breeze. A good song is playing on the radio. At some point, you get up to get a glass of water, but the exact reason why you did that at that particular time isn’t easy to explain. It was “too hot” and you were “somewhat thirsty,” but also maybe “a little bored.” Each of these qualities isn’t either/or, but instead fall on a spectrum of values.
In contrast, our software is usually built on Boolean values. We set isHot to true and if isHot && isThirsty && isBored, then we call getWater(). If we use code like this to control our game characters, then they will appear jerky and less natural. In this article, we’ll learn how to add intelligent behavior to the non-player characters of a game using an alternative to conventional Boolean logic.
Read more…
Once someone starts using your app, they need to know where to go and how to get there at any point. Good navigation is a vehicle that takes users where they want to go. But establishing good navigation is a challenge on mobile due to the limitations of the small screen and the need to prioritize content over chrome.
Different navigation patterns have been devised to solve this challenge in different ways, but they all suffer from a variety of usability problems. In this article, we’ll examine five basic navigation patterns for mobile apps and describe the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. If you’d like to add some patterns and spice up your designs, you can download and test Adobe XD for free and get started right away.
Read more…
Google decided to launch a war against interstitials that ruin the user experience. This article explains what exactly is being penalized, what’s allowed, and some workarounds to help you cope with this new penalty.
Read more…
Why write requirements? Well, let’s imagine you want to produce a mobile app, but you don’t have the programming skills. So, you find a developer who can build the app for you, and you describe the idea to him. Surprisingly, when he showcases the app for the first time, you see that it is not exactly what you want. Why? Because you didn’t provide enough detail when describing the idea.
Read more…
Voice-based interfaces are becoming commonplace. Voice assistants such as Siri and Cortana have been around for a few years, but this past holiday season, voice-driven devices from Amazon and Google made their way into millions of homes.
Recent analysis from VoiceLabs estimates that 24.5 million voice-driven devices will be shipped this year, almost four times as many as last year. As experience designers, we now have the opportunity to design voice experiences and interfaces!
Read more…
