Mobile Design with Alli Dryer – Podcast S03 E03

Working with Designers

Mic: Okay, so let’s assume then that I’ve got my idea for an app as a developer. I’ve contacted a designer who’s willing to work with me to realize this into something that we can ship. I’m still a little bit naïve as to working with designers because this is first time I’ve done so. What advice can you give would be teams of developers and designers advice on working better?

Obviously you just said communication is a big part, but what else can each side do to make sure that they can go from just sharing idea to shipping the app?

Alli [24:00]: I think that making sure that the designer has a really good understanding of your technical capabilities and what your interests are can really help. There are times when a designer will not have a keen awareness of what the developer is interested in building or able to build and will propose something that will require a huge amount of technical complexity that the developer might not be interested in implementing.

I think that that can damage the relationship between the two disciplines when there’s just not a clear understanding of what each person can do and is good at. I think it’s another way of saying communication, but just being really clear about what’s feasible and what the goals of the project are and working back and forth and building on things and being iterative.

Design Inspiration, Mistakes, and Communication

Mic: Okay, that’s great advice. Moving on from we’ve got this team. We’re working really well together. You’re going to crack on now with the design work. I’ve pitched you the idea, you’ve already got some ideas for me. As a designer where would go to source some inspiration or is just the idea itself enough?

Alli: No, I would definitely look at other similar apps for inspiration. I would go to the patterns sites. I would check out Dribble. I would also try and conduct some kind of research depending on the project. It could be something like talking to potential users. If it has to do with some kind of environment, I would go to the environment. I would just try to immerse myself in all the details that are specific to the project so that I could get an inspiration that way.

Mic: Okay, great, just so going back a couple of steps for developers that are going to go out on their own rather than going with a developer. Could you list a few of the common design mistakes that developers should look out for?

Alli [26:00]: Yeah, one of the things that I think is very important when you’re making an app is just to think about the needs of the user possibly ahead of the conveniences of the platform. Thinking about what the experience will be like for people when they’ve got this app in their hand and when they’re using it in their life as opposed to maybe like what’s slightly easier to build or you already have the library for could be one thing.

Then, just from an aesthetic level try to limit the number of different fonts and type that you have onscreen and being more constrained about the color, like not using a ton of different disparate elements, but rather trying to limit yourself to just a few can really help the design feel more cohesive.

Jake: I mentioned earlier I got some designs from a developer and it looked like they were more familiar with the Android platform so they didn’t position things in the right places. I had to negotiate on that. Are there things that as a developer I may not understand about the way the designer thinks that would help me communicate or better present my idea to them? Does that make sense?

Alli: Yeah.

Jake: Things that I might not understand in that same vein. Where maybe they don’t understand how a tab interface works on the iPhone. What do I need to understand from a design point of view?

Alli [28:00]: I think designers are trained to always be looking for a series of visual principles. These are things like contrast or unity or harmony or the different colors that they’re using need to have a complimentary relationship. There’s basically this entire visual and aesthetic language that designers get trained in and they’re applying.

Sometimes that training causes a designer to approach a design for a screen in a certain way where they may be ignorant of platform conventions. I think that if you are a developer and you have that awareness it’s really important to make sure that the designer understands that they need to navigate both.

Both systems matter so much in this type of design it needs to be aesthetic, all of things that go into visual design. Those principles are really important, but they’re not going to work if when the user encounters them it’s in this wild new environment that doesn’t make sense or is sometimes antithetical to the way they’re used to interacting with other apps.

I think that what you’re seeing when the designer’s not demonstrating mastery of the platform is that they’re probably focused primarily on these visual elements. That’s a really great opportunity to educate. Both parties can educate because the designer can explain I grouped these things together up here because it’s visually balanced. They can talk to you about what that means. You can explain that we wouldn’t use tabs in this setting.

Where To Go From Here?

Mic: Okay, I think some really solid advice that we can all take something from. I think that’s as good a place as any to wrap things up. Thanks again for joining us Alli.

Alli: Thanks so much for having me.

Mic: It’s been a pleasure. We’ll be recording next week’s episode from RWDevCon. If anyone is heading out to DC for the conference then do come and find us and say hi as both Jake and I will there running sessions. That’s it guys for another episode. As always if you have any questions or feedback then don’t hesitate to get in touch by at podcast@Ray Enderlich.com.

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