

Designing for iPad: Reality Check - ugh
http://informationarchitects.jp/designing-for-ipad-reality-check/

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bkudria
Great article, this quote stuck out for me:

    
    
      The same rule applies to visual metaphors: Just as any
      literary metaphor, a visual metaphor confuses if it doesn’t
      clarify; it breaks if you stretch it; and it becomes
      ridiculous if you combine it with a second or third
      metaphor.
    
      Avoid metaphor that do not clarify; if a metaphor darkens
      the meaning of what you are trying to express, don’t use it.

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itjitj
Huh?

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bkudria
What part of the quote are you having trouble understanding, sir?

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pyre
I think that it would be clearer if there were some examples of nested
metaphors or metaphors that 'darken' other metaphors. Maybe there is in the
actual text, but the quote out of context seems a little abstract.

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bkudria
Indeed, there are plenty of examples in the text. I didn't think it necessary
to paste the entire article in the comment box.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

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brianlash
He didn't say an example was necessary, he said it could have made the quote
clearer.

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bkudria
_whoosh_

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wallflower
iPad Human Interface Guide is an in-depth exploration on iPad app UX and is
now publicly available:

[http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/Gene...](http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/General/Conceptual/iPadHIG/iPadHIG.pdf)

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felixmar
_We found that the iPad applications we designed, made it relatively easy to
be translated back into websites. The iPad could prove to be a wonderful blue
print to design web sites and applications. If it works on the iPad, with a
few tweaks, it will work on a laptop._

In that case you might as well skip the iPad application and focus on the
cross-platform web application. Many of the current iPad applications don't
really need to be native apps.

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SlyShy
Glad I'm not the only one who thought many of the popular iPad applications
were silly.

The Average Reading Time idea is intriguing, however, I don't expect it to be
of much use. Reading time varies vastly depending on the material. Nobody
reads a journal article at the same pace as a novel, for instance.

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dcurtis
It knows how quickly you change/scroll through pages while you read, so it can
make a reasonable assumption of the number of words you read per minute and
create an estimation that way.

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SlyShy
Yes and no. I've tried this sort of thing before, and obviously the machine
can't know when you are actually reading a paragraph slowly or when you've
just been distracted. It would have to be clever about weighting an overall
average with a short term average. I'll be curious to see how they do it,
definitely.

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oloolo
It says: "To find your average reading time all you need is taking a two
minute test reading into one of the texts in the app and you’re set."

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devinj
Yeah, that's where I went from "this could be useful" to "that's stupid". It's
like doing an internet speed test to determine how long it will take to
download a file, ignoring how fast the file has actually been downloading.

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oloolo
It's called calibration.

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devinj
It's one thing to calibrate, it's another to rely on context-sensitive data
and pretend it is universal, when instead you can just rely on the context-
specific data for any specific context and refine the estimates as you go. To
my knowledge, web browsers do not "calibrate" like this.

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DenisM
I read the whole thing and learned nothing about design for iPad. Confused.

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ugh
What did you expect?

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DenisM
Some kind of a practical advice I could use in my work. If I knew what it
looked like I might not need it. Maybe "we tried this and users hated it, but
then we tried that and they loved it and lessons here is that that sort of
things works better in such and such circumstances".

First of all, for many/most users iPad is a part of a different workflow
compared to iPhone, and if people are to use it differently we should design
differently.

Each iPhone's screen should serve single purpose and unambiguously lead to the
next action. That way you get an app that can be used on the go. My guess is
that this is not true for iPad, as it's not likely to be used on the go, so
there will be a bigger preference towards multi-purpose screens. I would like
someone to talk about that.

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k-zed
Aha, so this is what an iPad developer does.

"In order to answer the questions: Is the font big enough? Does it render
well? Is the Schriftbild (text impression) inviting or rejecting? How does it
feel to read? ...we had no other choice than printing out your screens on a
1:1 scale. We had to print out hundreds of pixel designs to get a feeling for
the new canvas and the high resolution... After two months of printing, we did
get the type choices and sizes quite right..."

I have no words.

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ugh
What’s wrong with that? I would guess that’s not the only thing they did.

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pxlpshr
I'm not sure I fully agree with his argument against using materials and
textures to humanize a software interface. I do know that it requires a
designer who's execution is better than average, but I don't think it's as
much of a distraction as they proclaim. I also think it largely applies to the
type of software one is designing. For example, the stock Notes app is fine
but for Cultured Code's Things, it would not fit since task management is a
much deeper interaction.

Anyhow, this article wasn't really informative, seems to be mostly opinion
driven and the message is scattered. I showed the iPad to my parents this
weekend, they were enamored by it because it was easy to relate with compared
to their clunky Windows-based "laptops" -- a UX that's cold and impersonal.

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oloolo
Did you read the full article? Doesn't seem like it, since "it requires a
designer who's execution is better than average" is exactly what it says. And
not just that, it also defines the criteria for using metaphors and textures.

