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Principles exist at a higher level than any pattern. They can be considered patterns for the patterns, if you will. Each pattern, and each detail of interactive or presentational design, should adhere to each of these principles at all times.

Each section and chapter will begin with a discussion of the core principles for their sections, as well as other helpful guidelines that apply to those patterns.

Each of these principles could be discussed in great detail, and in fact I could have organized the book differently so each of them was a chapter, with patterns associated to it. In the the interest of clarity, the discussion of each of these is limited. If you are interested in further details on the rationale, these are generally discussed in greater detail within the patterns they apply to, as well as the chapter introductions.

Respect user entered data

Input is hard. Users slip. You have a new phone, or are borrowing it, and someone jogs your arm: suddenly minutes of typing is gone. Do whatever it takes to preserve user data. From saving as they type so autocomplete can bring it back, to not clearing forms on error, to planning for loss of connection. Consider contexts and plan for crisis and real-world behaviors, not benchtops and labs.

Mobiles are personal

While security is important, there is no longer the need to assume that maybe the website is being viewed on a library computer. Mobiles can be presumed to be one-device for one-person, and no one wants to have to regularly tell their device their name, their location or their favorite music. Only implement passwords, and clear personal information when required by law or regulation, and take other types of reasonable and transparent precautions to prevent misuse of information. Mobiles are increasingly shared, which may call for special behaviors to hide or secure certain information and settings from others.

Lives take precedence

Mobiles are contextual, here meaning they are used alongside people's actual lives. Desktops (and some and other devices) can suck people in so you can go ahead and issue alerts that blink in the corner of the screen, and they will be noticed. Mobiles are glanced at, used in gaps between conversation and driving and watching TV. They are even used to enhance these other experiences. So make sure they don't interrupt unless they have to. And if they have to, interrupt in a manner they will notice. A blinking LED, for example, is easily missed when a device is glanced at for a fraction of a second.

Mobiles must work in all contexts

Behave appropriately, or allow the user to make it behave appropriately, to make it work where they are. Most devices are too bright at night, making it hard to read that last email before bedtime, or tell what time it is when the alarm goes off first thing in the morning. If the phone doesn't have a good way to change brightness, your app can over-ride it or your website can just have a dark/light switch. Think about the context in which the device will be used.

Use your sensors and use your smarts

Whenever possible, perform actions for the user based on sensors, and user data. Why should anyone have to silence a phone for a meeting, when it knows where you physically are, and knows that your calendar has a meeting in that room right now? Mobiles can be better than computers, because of their personal nature and their sensors. Use them.

User tasks usually take precedence

If the user initiates a task, and especially if they are in the middle of it, do not interrupt so that the task is ruined. When typing an SMS, feel free to beep, but do not change focus so they are suddenly typing in another field. And never cancel the operation to take them to another page, loosing their information.

Consistency

Whatever the rest of the application does, do that. And the application standards should follow the edict: whatever the OS does, do that. Even if the OS does something dumb, it's probably what the user expects, so changing the paradigm generally results in more problems than solutions.

Respect for information

While presentation and visualization can be used to clarify information, or view it in different ways, do not modify the fundamental truth for space saving, or because you do not understand the value of it. More information than you might expect rises to life/health/safety levels with the ubiquity of mobiles. Weather, for example, must be presented perfectly accurately. Know the difference between precision vs. accuracy, understand implications of meter types, relative values, off-scale errors and more.

Naturally, these will change over time. Just in the past five years I have changed or expanded these several times. Be aware of the reasons these principles exist, and keep abreast of the industry so you are aware of changes.

While I feel that these principles are universal today, you are very free to disagree. Many others do, and they have their own principles, or variations on the understanding of what these mean. As long as you develop a set of design principles or objectives for your work, or your project, and then stick to them.


Next: Acknowledgements


Discuss & Add

Please do not change content above this like, as it's a perfect match with the printed book. Everything else you want to add goes down here.

Examples

If you want to add examples (and we occasionally do also) add them here.

Make a new section

Just like this. If, for example, you want to argue about the differences between, say, Tidwell's Vertical Stack, and our general concept of the List, then add a section to discuss. If we're successful, we'll get to make a new edition and will take all these discussions into account.

Principles of Mobile Design (last edited 2016-02-02 15:48:56 by shoobe01)