Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 3: More Views
In the previous article, you saw the various basic views such as the TextView, EditText, Button, and how you can use them in your Android applications. In this article, we shall continue our exploration of another three categories of views - Picker views, List views, and Display views. The views discussed include: TimePicker view DatePicker view ListView view Spinner view Gallery view ImageView ImageSwitcher view GridView view more...
Are Widgets ready for me?
OK, so getting back to the widget reality here. I'd like to take a look at what the platforms are, what your options are and if it's really even worth it to go there. I know that last time I got a bit distracted with the whole 'sprite' thing, but I promise to stay on track here. more...
Effective Design for Multiple Screen Sizes
So you're a designer and have been tasked with the design of a mobile web site. Chances are, unless you're designing for only one device you're quickly going to be faced with a common problem experienced by designers who work with mobile devices; figuring out what screen size to actually design for. For instance: more...
The Best and Worst of the Mobile Web
Our sister-site mobiThinking.com has just published an eBook on "The Best and Worst of the Mobile Web". In it there are examples of winners and sinners, those who do it right, and those not quite right, and why! So now might be a good time to fire up your mobile browser and let us know if you agree. more...
Mobile Web Design: Getting to the Point - Part II
Following on from part I, I want to put into practice the principles that I isolated by looking at GMail, Twitter and Facebook. I’ll apply the principles to one of the most common of web applications: the online store. I want to look at three typical online store pages and then go through some ideas about how best to apply mobile web design principles to the pages. I'll go through the process of building the site from the ground up... from simple sketches through wireframing and the final design. more...
Introducing the new DeviceAtlas Data Explorer
We teased you about this a few months ago and we've now finally finished! DeviceAtlas v2.1 offers analytics tools to explore the mobile device information in its database. In the video below, James and Andrea give you a teaser of how it works, and talk through some of the cool new tricks. We're going live next Monday, and we'll announce here when it's available. UPDATE: we've gone live. more...
Mobile Web Design: Getting to the Point - Part I
This is the first in a two part look at mobile web design. In part 1, I focus on three current 'big guns' of mobile web applications and look at how they solve the problems of mobile web application design by getting to the point. In part 2 I'll get practical and run through a series of steps to design a small sample mobile eCommerce site, applying what was learned in this article. more...
America's largest mobile web site
We have a sister site over at mobiThinking, and they've just published a bunch of cool new case studies and interviews about businesses making their presence felt on the mobile web. Up this time is the Weather Channel, who, with weather.mobi, have between 7 and 9 million unique users per month, and claim to be the largest content site in the US for the mobile web. more...
Mobile Web Design - Working with Color
This article discusses the role of color in mobile web design. Color used effectively allows for visually communicating information about a page without having to take up additional space within the page. As everyone learns, whether a mobile web user, or a mobile web designer or developer, screen real estate is at a premium in the mobile web environment. more...
The mysteries of mobile data plans or It’s all about Page Weight
So I have to make a confession (seems like I’ve been doing that a lot recently…) For the first time in my life I received a mobile phone bill with data charges on it. What you say? Are you some sort of imposter? Have you not been using mobile data all these years? Well, here’s the thing: I’ve been using it for free (we’ll, it’s all been on the company’s dime that is) so it never really hit me how much it really cost. more...
