I was browsing the Design Observer the other day, (as I tend to do daily), and I noticed that they have just released an iPhone app, a pretty sharp one at that. This got me thinking about the best practices and design techniques to bring to iPhone apps and other mobile app development. After some extensive searching, I came up with a lot of recommended iPhone and mobile apps for graphic designers, but no articles about what to think about when designing for smartphones.
Our company, unlike the majority of app development companies, does not design for game-based mobile applications. Because our history is so rooted in large-scale business application software, thats what we live and breathe. We have created over 30 mobile apps across all of the platforms, but they have been primarily business-focused, business-designed. This is why the Design Observer iPhone app struck me; it manages to balance business and leisure. Its beautiful and intuitive, and even introduces a new way to look at something: Mondrian-Style. So how do business-based iPhone app developers turn text-based material into well-designed and even sexy applications? What lessons can we learn from other successful business-function iPhone apps?
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