iPhone® Application Development All-In-One For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Creating a Compelling User Experience

In This Chapter

• Understanding what makes an iPhone app different

• Making an app that's worth the cost

• Avoiding the pitfalls that get apps rejected

• Designing for the best user experience

When you have a handle on the possibilities and limitations of the iPhone, your imagination is free to soar to create a compelling user experience. But what is a "compelling user experience," really?

For openers, a compelling user experience has to result from the interaction of several factors:

• Interesting, useful, plentiful content

• Powerful, fast, versatile functionality

• An intuitive, well-designed user interface

The iPhone allows an immediacy and intimacy as it blends mobility and the power of the desktop to create a new kind of freedom. I like to use the term user experience because it implies more than a pretty user interface and nice graphics. A compelling user experience enables users to do what they need to do with a minimum of fuss and bother. But more than that, it forces you as a developer to think past a clean interface and even beyond basic convenience (such as not having to scroll through menus to do something simple). It includes meeting the expectations of the user based on the context — all the stuff going on around a user — in which they're using the app.

A guidebook app may have a great user interface, for example, but it may not give me the most up-to-date information or let me know that a tour of the Houses of Parliament is leaving in five ...