A successful app development for iOS entails close collaboration between iOS developers and graphic designers. Any disconnect between the two delays the app development process, leading to an infuriated client. In order to ensure seamless workflow between developers and designers, we have listed below a few practical and easy to follow tips for designers that save time, reduce iterations, and speed up the iOS app development process significantly-
1. Honesty at the mock up stage – At the initial stage, use only those deigns in the mock up that delivers value to the full developed app. At the mock-up stage there are a lot of unknown variables that need to be accounted for
a. will the app being developed be the right fit for your designs?
b. will your design respect the dynamism or uncertainty of real life and adjust well to actual elements, layout, data, or content?
This tip will make certain that developers’ screen mock-up truly depicts how the app will look like at the stage- i.e. when not all information is at hand.
2. Close collaboration – Constant and open communication is a must between developers and designers. As a designer, you can sit with developers and see how your designs get programmed into living entities within the app. This helps maintain overall consistency of the color and theme of the app and prevents any disconnect with what the designer delivers versus what the developer expects.
3. Avoid redundancy – If possible and applicable, you can deliver a similar set of elements as a template that can be customized further by developer and then applied appropriately. For instance, if you are designing a button element, there need not be separate buttons for ‘ok’, ‘cancel’, ‘submit’, ‘search’ etc. Developers can easily add the label upon blank buttons wherever required.
4. Design prototypes – There are tools that help designers convey a dummy depiction of how different elements will be arranged and brought together. Developers will get a sense of the different action, navigation and animation put together by you and thus remove any confusion. You can try out tools such as Invision and Proto.io to create such productive design prototypes.
5. File delivery – Developers already have a lot going on to accomplish app development. Some useful piece of advice for designers to help reduce overheads on developers would be-
a. Sorted delivery – You can make folders per screen of the app and dump all images in it. You can also put in a screenshot of entire screen with placement of various elements to avoid confusion.
b.Consistency – You would need to ensure that all elements are consistent. For instance all images should be .PNG (and not a mix of .JPG and .PNG)
c. iOS oriented – Images need to be both high res (for retina display of recent iOS devices) and low res (for older iOS devices). Also follow the universal naming convention (for e.g. suffix high res images with “@2x”).
These steps will ensure that the deliverable can be easily used by developers further in the app development process. Got any other useful point to add to the above list? Write in to us and let us know.
