So you've already learned how to navigate the tricky world of cross-platform app design and worked through all of the common pitfalls of developing your app. You have a vision, some inspiration and maybe even a name that you know will be perfect. So ... now what?
It's time to get down to the nitty-gritty and begin designing the structure, flow and features that will combine to form your finished mobile app. But actually performing these tasks isn't easy — there are tons of moving parts and project management aspects to keep in mind during development. Developing a functioning and enjoyable mobile app requires discipline and practicality. If you don't tend to the nuts and bolts of production, you're putting yourself at risk for disaster.
These mobile design “don’ts” will help any mobile designer avoid some messy obstacles, so make sure to keep them in mind. Your app — and your sanity — will thank you for it.
1. Don’t Begin Wireframes or Designs Without a Flowmap
Many designers use 640.960 as screen size that is the resolution of. Stack Exchange Network. Stack Exchange network consists of 175 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn. Screen size for mobile app design. Ask Question 5. Jun 14, 2016 Screen Size. Screen size refers to the length of the screen across diagonally or from one corner to the other. Resolution in a mobile is the number of pixels that are across the screen is to number of pixels that are downwards. For instance, first iPhone had resolution of 320×480, with 320 pixels across and 480 pixels down.
Have a well-thought-out user flow ready to go before wireframes and designs begin. Even simple applications should have a well-considered flowmap in place to help ensure a logical and reasonable navigational structure.
Another thing to pay attention to is making sure that key functional screens are close to the top rather than buried beneath multiple levels of navigational elements. Skipping the flowmap and simply designing or wiring screens without a plan is the easiest way to create a convoluted flow that leaves users confused and turned off.
2. Don’t Disregard the Development Budget
Everything a designer creates will have to go through a developer in order to bring those designs to life. Sometimes very simple design changes can make the difference between a feature that takes a few hours to build and one that takes a few days. Be weary of over-defining functionality in the design.
In other words, the design should not dictate the functionality. For example, an app might have been planned to have a search box, one the designer envisions with a type-ahead search that generates live results as the user types. But this can be a significant developmental undertaking to properly implement, and the designer should not be the sole decision-maker for such a significant element.
3. Don’t Start With Low Resolutions & Avoid Bitmaps
Always design for retina, high-res, pixel-dense screens first, then scale down. This should be obvious to any serious designer but it’s still worth mentioning. As the number of common screen resolutions on mobile devices continues to expand (iOS alone has 4 different resolutions to worry about), always start with the highest resolution device and scale down from there. Even better: Design with vector graphics rather than scale-challenged bitmaps or rasterized graphics.
4. Don’t Undersize The Hit Area
Remember that most users' index fingers are 1.6 to 2 cm wide. Take into account the width of a finger, plus the fact that users are moving quickly and aren’t able to reliably tap a tiny area of the screen. It’s all too easy to pack lots of buttons and functionality into a screen, but be sure to always make buttons big enough — and spaced enough — to be easily tapped by users.
5. Don’t Gratuitously Use Intro Animations
Those fun little animations when an app first opens can be really nice, but it’s important not to go overboard with them. The catch with intro animations (Path and Thrillist’s JackThreads have cool ones) is that they technically can’t begin until the app is already loaded. So in effect, they actually delay the user from accessing the app. If you’re going to use one, make it quick, subtle and appealing enough to be worth the extra second or so that the user has to wait.
As an app loads, a still image should display, which then transitions into an animation. Make sure the transition is seamless. Some poor implementations have a jump or glitch as the app transitions from the still loading image to the intro animation, and that’s no fun.
6. Don’t Leave Users Hanging
Leaving the user out of the loop when the app is loading or processing could cause users to think the app is malfunctioning. It’s also just a poor experience.
Don't keep your users waiting on a blank screen while the app is loading content from the web. Use loading indicators and animations to give users a heads up that the app is working, but it’s just waiting on the phone or the network. A progress indicator is even better, but it’s worth checking with your developers or having a backup plan before designing them into the interface (per our second tip).
7. Don’t Blindly Copy Style From Other Operating Systems
Bad conversions from one mobile OS to another can confuse and annoy users. Every mobile OS has its own style and the OS’s creator has probably published detailed Human Interface Guidelines that have codified their unique aesthetic. iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7 have very different aesthetics. For example, an app on the iPhone that uses the WP7’s block-layout and navigation style would be unfamiliar and confusing to users.
It’s not necessary to make every app look like it was built by the operating system’s creator, but be careful not to make the app look like it doesn’t belong on the platform.
8. Don’t Overstuff Pixel-Dense Screens
When designing for high PPI (pixel per inch) displays, there can be a temptation to fit more into an interface because you have more pixels to play with. This is especially true if you're reviewing designs on an 27-inch high-res display, where even the most busy interfaces will have plenty of room to breathe. Remember to preview all your work on the actual device you're designing for, even if it’s just a screengrab in the device’s photo viewer.
Overstuffing an interface can result in an app that's cluttered and difficult to navigate. In the worst cases, critical parts of the interface may actually be downright impossible to see.
9. Don’t Assume Everyone Will Use Your App The Same Way You Do
Usability testing is a must, no matter how good your app looks. Consider organizing a closed beta to small group of trusted people (including a few experienced designers) and update the interface before releasing the app to the public.
Another easy way to get some decent feedback on the cheap is to put up a Craigslist ad for a testing focus group. Target college students who would be willing to come in and play around with a pre-release app in exchange for a few bucks and some pizza.
10. Don’t Forget About Gestures, But Don’t Abuse Them Either
Keep in mind that not every single element of the interface has to be fully visible or easy to get to immediately.
A great example is the deletion process in the Mail app for iPhone. In the inbox view, a user can swipe a message to reveal a delete button. This is a shortcut that saves the user the hassle of tapping “edit,” selecting a message to delete and then tapping delete. But it’s a balance: The “delete” shortcut is a way to quickly remove an email, while the “edit” menu is reserved for those who don’t know about the shortcut or who want to take advanced actions such as deleting or flagging multiple messages at a time.
In other words, keep gestures in mind, but don’t become overly reliant on them. And generally avoid using a gesture-accessed menu or action as the only point of access.
Conclusion
If there’s a single unifying element to all these design faux pas, it’s that the best designs are carefully considered. It comes down to thinking critically and completely about your methods. Really think through what your users are trying to achieve and let that inform your designs. Don’t cut corners, don’t skip testing and don’t create designs that you wouldn't put in your portfolio or use yourself.
Have you built a mobile app before and have some tips on what not to do? Let us know in the comments.
Series supported by Sourcebits
The Mobile App Trends Series is presented by Sourcebits, a leading developer of applications and games for all major mobile platforms. Sourcebits has engineered over 200 apps to date, with plenty more to come. Sourcebits offers design and development services for iPhone, Android and more. Please feel free to get in touch with us to find out how we can help your app stand apart in a crowded marketplace. Follow Sourcebits on Twitter and Facebook for recent news and updates.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, TommyL, AccessTheNight
-->You can improve the experience of viewing reports in the mobile apps by creating a portrait layout. In Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service, you rearrange and resize report visuals for an optimal experience in portrait mode.
Looking for information about viewing reports on a mobile device instead? Try this quickstart Explore dashboards and reports in the Power BI mobile apps.
Plus you can create responsive visuals and responsive slicers that resize well anywhere. If you add filters to your report, they show up automatically in the optimized report.
Lay out a portrait version of a report page
After you create a report, you can optimize it for phones and tablets.
In Report View in Power BI Desktop, on the View tab, select Phone Layout.
In the Power BI service, select Edit Report > Mobile Layout.
You see a blank canvas shaped like a phone. All of the visuals on the original report page are listed in the Visualizations pane on the right.
To add a visual to the phone layout, drag it from the Visualizations pane to the phone canvas.
Phone reports use a grid layout. As you drag visuals to the mobile canvas, they snap to that grid.
You can add some or all the master report page visuals to the phone report page. You can add each visual only once. You don't have to include all the visuals.
You can resize your visuals on the grid, as you would for tiles on dashboards and mobile dashboards.
The phone report grid scales across phones of different sizes, so your report looks good on small- and large-screen phones.
Optimize a visual for any size
You can set the visuals in your dashboard or report to be responsive. They can change dynamically to display the maximum amount of data and insight, no matter the screen size.
As a visual changes size, Power BI prioritizes the data view. For example, it can remove padding and move the legend to the top of the visual automatically, so the visual remains informative even as it gets smaller.
You choose whether to turn on responsiveness for each visual. Read more about optimizing visuals.
Considerations when creating phone report layouts
- For reports with multiple pages, you can optimize all the pages or only a few.
- If you've defined a background color for a report page, the phone report will have the same background color.
- You can’t modify formatting settings for just the phone. Formatting is consistent between master and mobile layouts. For example, font sizes will be the same.
- To change a visual, such as changing its formatting, dataset, filters, or any other attribute, return to the regular report authoring mode.
- Power BI provides default titles and page names for phone reports in the mobile app. If you’ve created text visuals for titles and page names in your report, consider not adding them to your phone reports.
Remove a visual from the phone layout
To remove a visual, click the X in the top-right of the visual on the phone canvas, or select it and press Delete.
Removing the visual here only removes it from the phone layout canvas. The visual and the original report aren't affected.
Enhance slicers to work well in phone reports
Slicers offer on-canvas filtering of report data. When designing slicers in the regular report authoring mode, you can modify some slicer settings to make them more usable in phone reports:
- Decide if report readers can select only one or more than one item.
- Put a box around the slicer to make the report easier to scan.
- Make the slicer vertical, horizontal, or responsive.
If you make the slicer responsive, as you change its size and shape it shows more or fewer options. It can be tall, short, wide, or narrow. If you make it small enough, it becomes just a filter icon on the report page.
Read more about creating responsive slicers.
Publish a phone report
To publish the phone version of a report, you publish the main report from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI service, and the phone version publishes at the same time.
Read more about sharing and permissions in Power BI.
View optimized and unoptimized reports on a phone or tablet
In the mobile apps on phones, Power BI automatically detects optimized and unoptimized phone reports. If a phone-optimized report exists, the Power BI phone app automatically opens the report in phone report mode.
If a phone-optimized report doesn’t exist, the report opens in the unoptimized, landscape view.
When in a phone report, changing the phone’s orientation to landscape will open the report in the unoptimized view with the original report layout, whether the report is optimized or not.
If you only optimize some pages, readers will see a message in portrait view, indicating the report is available in landscape.
Report readers can turn their phones or tablets sideways to see the page in landscape mode. Read more about interacting with Power BI reports optimized for portrait mode.
Next steps
- More questions? Try asking the Power BI Community