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PREFACE
This text offers an introduction to and general overview of interaction design for all mobile
computing platforms, with a particular emphasis on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS
platforms.
Mobile apps should feel natural and intuitive. Users should quickly and easily understand them.
This means that effective interaction and interface design is crucial to the success of any mobile
app. Few mobile app developers (or even designers), however, have had adequate training in
these areas.
Touchscreen-focused, mass-market mobile applications are a type of technology that’s only
been possible to create since 2008, and the industry has seen monumental shifts and growth in
the six years between the introduction of the “app economy” and the publication of this work.
This book aims to help put you in a place to succeed as a designer in today’s app market by
teaching proven principles and techniques that you can use in your next app, no matter what
mobile platform, targeted device, form factor, or user base you’re targeting.
In short, the tutorial style used here aims to help you master the mindset, processes, and vocab-
ulary of mobile interaction design so that you can start making better choices right away. This
book guides you through the entire process of app design, demystifying many of the tasks and
issues that arise during the many stages of developing, releasing, and improving a mobile app.
Cameron Banga has been working in mobile application development since 2009, and in the
nearly five years since releasing his first app he’s contributed as a designer or as an adviser to
more than 100 applications for iPhone, iPad, Android, and OS X. In that time, he’s seen firsthand
the growth and change experienced in the mobile industry and has worked to meet client and
customer expectations throughout the many evolutions of mobile platforms.
This book aims to serve as a central resource for programmers or designers looking to best
determine how to establish themselves in today’s modern mobile landscape by offering advice
formulated and acquired through Cameron’s experiences over the past several years as a pio-
neer of the mobile app economy.
Topics chosen for this book were selected carefully by Cameron with advice from and in coordi-
nation with several successful and award-winning industry colleagues. The goal of each chapter
was to focus on a particular strong primary skill required of any successful designer, breaking
that skill down into a few key components that any novice could focus on and, with some
strong advice and clear guidance, work to master quickly.