Design your way

You might think that creating an app for use on an iPhone or iPad is too complicated and simply out of your reach. However, app design and creation has never been simpler than it is today. Using tools such as Sketch and Xcode simplify the process and make app creation simpler to both designers and developers.

Xcode, for example, provides you all the tools you need to create an amazing app and even includes many built-in templates and assets so you can quickly design interfaces quickly without having to code it manually.

Sketch also has great plugins allowing designers and developers alike to create an app in a matter of minutes. Combining these tools is a great way to greatly reduce the development time of your app so you can bring it to the market much faster.

However, before you release your latest app idea, there are several design concepts that must be considered that will help you organize your ideas so you can create an app that everyone will want to use.

Start with a concept

Start with a concept

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Concept comes first and all the great apps began with one simple concept. When forming the concept for your app, there are many questions you should ask that will help guide you through the app creation process and provide you with insights into how your app should function.

Identify your audience

Before you begin designing your app, you will need to identify who your audience is and what types of users will be downloading and using your app. All users are different and you need to learn more about your audience and understand what types of users will be most likely to download your app and use it each day.

Determine the problem your app will solve

The best apps identify one problem experienced by their audience and attempt to solve it quickly and easily. For example, weather apps give users the weather and do nothing more and nothing less. Identify what problem your app will solve for your audience and decide how you want to present the solution to your audience.

What content will you include to solve the problem?

Now that you know who your audience is and what problem you are trying to solve for your audience, you can design on what content you will put in your app to solve that problem. When creating content for your app, consider what your audience will want to see and create a basic idea on how it will be shown in your app.

While your app concept doesn’t have to be fully realized when you begin the design of your app, the more detail about your app concept you have the easier it will be for you to create the final design of your app.

Designing the app interface

Designing the app interface

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Once you have established a clear concept for your app, it is time to begin creating the interface that users will use to navigate your app. When creating an interface, there are several concepts that you must keep in mind during the process.

Be mindful of your users

While you may be designing the app of your dreams, you must remember that your app will be used by others. You must consider the needs and desires of your potential user base when creating the interface for your app. Design the app around their habits and how they like to use apps. This will help you ensure a more well rounded user experience that will attract more and more people to your app.

Make your interface simple

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of app usage are poorly designed or overly complicated interfaces. Most users simply won’t sit down and take a considerable amount of time to learn an overly complicated interface on a phone or tablet.

When creating the interface of your app, make it simple to use and easy to navigate so users can quickly navigate through all the content of your app without excessive touching and swiping just to get what they need.

Graphically compelling

Just because your interface is simple, doesn’t mean it has to look plain as well. Users enjoy viewing compelling graphics even when navigating interfaces so great care should be taken when creating the graphics for your interface and menus.

Remember, when creating your interface, be sure the design flows with the look of the rest of your app and keep all your choices clear and make them easy to read for a pleasant viewing and navigating experience.

Consider storyboarding

One of the most difficult tasks is translating your app concept into a meaningful and useful interface. To simplify the process, break your concept up into different categories in your app and draw out basic storyboards of the flow of your user interface.

Using storyboards is a great way to break up the content of your app and see how your concepts are flowing together. With a visual layout of your designs and implementation, you will be able to almost instantly see what areas aren’t working or need improvement and you can quickly determine what parts of your interface simply don’t work at all so you can overhaul them before your app has been completed.

Tutorials and resources

If you are tired of being on the sidelines of app design and have dreamed of bringing your own app to the market, these tutorials and resources for creating an iOS app are just the tools you need. These tutorials will help you through the entire process and bring to you the knowledge and understanding of the tools you need to implement the app designs you have been dreaming about but have, until now, been unable to create yourself.