Tedd Fox on developing apps & pages for mobile devices

Mobile apps and mobile landing pages have a lot in common. They both seek to provide flawless touch navigation, they both must be edited down from their Web counterparts for the small screen, and they both are on a mission to provide a seamless user experience. 

Tedd Fox is a lead software developer at Citrix, where he demonstrates his passion for mobile application development and delivery every day. He is a co-designer of Citrix Receiver for iPad, which was the #1 free business app in the iTunes AppStore on April 14, 2010.

Because we’re so passionate about mobile-optimized landing pages, and Tedd’s so passionate about mobile-optimized applications, I thought it would be fun to sit down and pick his brain. You can follow Tedd @teddfox on Twitter.

Q: Usability is a huge part of the development process for mobile apps. What are your top user experience tips when designing for mobile devices?

Tedd: Luckily, I am the lead on the “experience” part. 

1. IKEA is your friend. Get Scandinavian with your app design: less is more. 
   
   Users do not need to see EVERYTHING at once. If a button is not used frequently by many many many users, it goes somewhere else, and not in the face all the time.
    
2. Design features that will actually be used!
   
   I cannot stress enough on this one.  Do NOT implement a feature that only 10% of your users would ever think about using.  I always say “no” on feature requests until the users are almost to the point of being mean! I just want to make sure a good percentage of the users want it.  
   
   On that note, I NEVER ASK, “would you like it if we implemented this or that feature?”  That is leading the user.  I have them tell us what they want.  If you ask them if they want to see this or that feature, they will say yes, but if you ask them what they want to see or do, they will tell you the truth. 

Q: Citrix supports several mobile devices, do you recommend designing specifically for each device, or following one set of principles across all devices?

Tedd: That is a double edged sword really.  We design for iPhone and iPad specifically for those devices.  Other mobile platforms (like Android) have another default set of controls.  Mainly we implement the features that the platforms allow, but we have a different user experience for each one because there is an expected behaviour for each platform.  However, I have say that the lines are getting closer and closer as other platforms are stepping up to the plate and allowing the developers to use some great controls.  Look at the official Twitter app for Android—pure awesome.

Q: How is designing for the iPad different than for the iPhone?

Tedd: Mainly you have more real estate.  We get to do things we always wanted to do on the iPhone, but did not have the room.  

The only thing is, now that you have space to design on, you have to make sure you do not feel obligated to fill it all up with junk!  When transitioning to the iPad from the iPhone, we took a few days to figure out that we did not want to just have table views and default looking split view controllers, so we came up with the workspace concept.  This way we keep the user in the app, and it feels more interactive.  When you are in a compelling application the device BECOMES the app.  It is a lot of responsibility, but we are artists before coders!

Q: What are your thoughts on pinching, zooming and scrolling?

Tedd: ALWAYS have a default size that the item snaps to.  We defaulted to the 1024x768 mode and then the user can go nuts.  We even wrote a few gestures on our own to make the experience of multitouch even more relevant.  You see, we are putting windows apps on a multi-touch device.  Windows does not have gestures, so we had to define a few because the interaction with the application needed them.  We user three-finger taps to bring up the keyboard, etc…

Q: What advice would you give to someone just starting out in making pages for mobile viewers?

Tedd:

1. Use no Flash. Yes, it can be a political thing, but you are better off if you want your content seen on the most popular devices.


2. Know which browsers do what.  Try to detect the browser and optimize for it.  If it is a tablet, use the “desktop” version of the site.  If it is a phone use the mobile version.  Nothing urks me more than using my iPad and getting a crazy looking mobile site.  Better yet,  give a link to switch between the different versions, and make that link easy easy easy to find.  

Thank you to Tedd for taking the time out of his busy day to speak with me. To stay up to date with Tedd’s work, follow him @TeddFox.