Programming the iPhone User Experience

Chapter 9. UX Anti-Patterns

A design pattern is a common approach to solving a problem. All developers apply design patterns to their work, even if they don’t realize it. There are countless books that cover design patterns for software engineers and designers, and this book is no exception. An anti-pattern is a common mistake when addressing a problem. Anti-patterns are the flip side to design patterns; they are basically design patterns that should be avoided because they cause at least as many problems as they solve.

Most design patterns have names; you’ve likely encountered the Delegate, Chain of Command, Singleton, Observer, and Model-View-Controller patterns. Anti-patterns are often named as well. This chapter is an exploration of anti-patterns found in many applications in the App Store.

It’s important to keep in mind, however, that an anti-pattern doesn’t equal a bad application. As you’ll see in this collection of common anti-patterns, many excellent applications include a problematic feature or two. Applications, like standards, evolve over time. The most important thing a developer can do is to constantly consider the perspective of the user and to recognize patterns—both good and bad.

Billboards

Chapter 5 covered launch screens and the Default.png pattern built into the loading of Cocoa Touch applications. Despite the Human Interface Guidelines’ recommendation that launch screens act as visual placeholders for loading applications, a large number of applications ...