iPhone Sketchbook, Improve Your Paper Prototyping and App Design

Aug 25

App Sketchbook

After being asked to design some iPhone apps and coming up nil on solid design tools, I decided to have my own made. For a few months now I’ve been toying around with the idea of an iPhone templated sketchbook. Finally I’ve release the App Sketchbook.

I had this sketchbook printed for a few reasons:

Sketching Happens in Sketchbooks

I’m a huge fan of sketching and have sketched about 90% of my designs, whether it be logos, websites or iPhone apps. I like pencils, erasers and crushing pieces of paper in my hand, then throwing them out after I draw nonsense on them. Sketching is a solid way to get the bad crazy ideas out of your head until you come up with a good great one. When I was in school, a professor would have us draw 50 thumbnail sketches for a logo before the assignment could be marked complete. About the first 25 of these ideas someone else has already sketched, the next few are probably junk/so-so and then you get to the good stuff.

Developers Like Action

In my experience, when working with a developer, it’s always best to draw out the ideas and do a walk-through of how the app will work. They want to know “What screen comes next?” and “What happens when I click that?” So by quickly sketching out your ideas with a developer siting next to you, the app starts to fall into place. You also get the developer involved in the design process early and he/she gets a feel for your style and vice versa.

The “Interface Builder Trap”

While designing my first iPhone application I fell into what I would call the “Interface Builder Trap.” You start to pick and pull from Interface Builder assets and you start to feel like the HIG has got you by throat. Not the case at all. After letting what I’ve learned from Apple’s guidelines digest, I started to realize that one of the key ingredients to iPhone applications (like Hip-Hop) is flow. You want your app to be the Jay-Z of the app store. The best way to work on your flow is to see your application screens in a series while sketching. So, with that said, the App Sketchbook has 3 templates per page and a lined area to jot down transitions or other important interface notes.

I’m really excited to put the App Sketchbook into action and I’m hoping some of the other talented people I know designing and building applications will get to make use of it as well.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the sketchbook and how I could improve it.

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Stephen Martin