Designing and Specifying iPhone Apps

Designing and Specifying iPhone Apps

I asked the twitterverse for a list of tools to help to specify requirements for an iPhone App.

I got some great responses so thought I’d better write them down and share with the class.

Wireframes / Mock Ups

I had been using http://lovelycharts.com/ to create mock ups in the past. This is great but struggled to find any iPhone specific image assets to use to help me.

Someone mentioned a tool called balsamiq http://www.balsamiq.com/and it seems to be perfect for the job. I will give away a free copy worth $79 at the next openMIC event ( http://openmicamp.ning.com/ )

If you already use OmniGraffle then aparently these stencils are good http://theresaneil.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/wire-frames-for-iphone-web-application-design/or here http://graffletopia.com/stencils/437

If you are using Photoshop then there are some PSD files here http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/?p=447

If you just want to use powerpoint as your tool of choice then there is a powerpoint available for download here. http://www.slideshare.net/graiz/wireframe-parts-iphone-interface-design-presentation?src=embed

If you are using Visio then there are some templates here http://www.bretteddy.com/iphone/

Somebody also said that the best way of creating the wireframes was to use pencil and paper, if you prefer that you can download an image to print as a guideline for your drawing. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=770666

Developer Tools

I founs some of the resources listed above from tools listed for developers, you know the teach yourself iPhone development type resources. The best list I have foind for that type of thing is here http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/iphone-application-and-website-development-all-tools-and-tutorials-you-need/

Hope this is useful, feel free to copy and paste it into your blogs etc if you think other people you know would be interested and dont forget to join the mobile app development community at http://openmicamp.ning.com/

Cheers Chris

September 4th 2009

http://twitter.com/bookmeister