iPad Design Headaches

Josh Clark's "iPad Design Headaches" was by far my favorite session at South by Southwest. I've read through most of Josh's iPhone-focused book, Tapworthy, and made it a point to see his session. He went through a lot of the common mistakes that people often make when designing for the iPad.

Greedy Pixel Syndrome

Whitespace is crucial. Don't go overboard when designing for the iPad. Better to have less info per screen and then allow users to ask for more. "Tap quality trumps tap quantity".

Page-Flips & "Gimmicky" Navigation

Jer Thorp summed it up best when he posted, "Why does an e-book reader need a page-turn effect? Like having a fake needle on a CD player. Or horse-shit coming from the back of a car," on Twitter.

The Frankeninterface

Basically, if it looks like a button or something that's "tapable", make sure that it is. For example, Apple's own Calendar app. It looks like you'd be able to swipe to go the the next and previous day, but that's not the case, which is confusing and frustrating.

Popover Pox

Popovers are great when used for quick peeks of info, but avoid for exploration and navigation.

iPad Elbow

Instead of a back button, which usually resides in the top left portion of the interface, explore multitouch gestures. Reeder, for example, uses the pinching gesture making it easy to navigate back from wherever your fingers may be.

If you ever get a chance to see one of Josh's sessions live, be sure you do.