Aesthetics and interaction play a critical role in the success of a mobile experience; they can alter a person’s perception of the usefulness of your mobile app or website. This course focuses on the basics of creating both beautiful and usable mobile interfaces for your users.

Please note: This seminar focuses on visual and interaction design, not on development or programming.

Topics covered

• The visual anatomy of mobile design
  • Icons: Design and usage
  • Images
  • Forms
  • Transitions
  • UI feedback, alerts and notifications, Heads Up Displays (HUDs)
  • User mental models and skeuomorphism
  • Designing for gestures and discoverability
• Balance aesthetics with functionality to create an elegant and functional design
• Know the basic visual design components for mobile design and apply them to your situations
  • Links and labels
  • Buttons
  • Sorts and filters
  • Navigation bar
  • Tabs
  • Sliders
  • Toggles
  • Carousels
• Identify visually-awkward design decisions and know how to fix them
• Cross-device design
  • Achieving a recognizable style across big and small screens
  • Unifying websites, apps, and other interfaces even if they can't all have the same features

Format

The basis of the course is a lecture format with a couple of group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.

The course also includes:

• Screenshots of designs that work and don’t work, and why
• Opportunities to ask questions and get answers

Companion Course

Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet: Day 2 is a companion course to Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet: Day 1. Each course can be taken independently. Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet: Day 2 covers:

• Advanced visual design principles for mobile devices
• Visual design and interaction patterns for common mobile experiences
• Tips to differentiate your design from competitors