iPhone Conformity

I rethought my interface yesterday. It occured to me that I wasn’t really managing the people in my table view much like other apps I’d seen. My app will be for one of those social networks out there. You’ll be able to see people in the main view of the app in a table view. I was planning to have an additional tab in the tab bar for adding people, and another tab in the tab bar for sorting options.

Yesterday I realized that this is too clunky. It will be better to get rid of the tab bar completely, add a “+” symbol to the nav bar so that I can add people (just like the Contacts app) and add a Sort button on the left side of the nav bar. That way, I don’t need a tab bar at all, streamlining the interface and making it easier to use.

Most programmers wage an inner battle when developing software. On one side, you have the best user experience possible. This is what you want to create. On the other side, you have the coolest technology possible. This is what you want to use. You want to create an excellent user experience by doing really cool stuff, using all sorts of neat technologies. But the problem is that often we use those cool techno widgets just because we can, and not because it’s best for the app.

That was the case here. This is my first iPhone app. I thought it would be cool to use both a nav bar and a tab bar. I actually thought at the time that it would be the best interface too. But I made the mistake of not thinking through my interface thoroughly enough. Upon further reflection I realized I was throwing too much stuff in there. So tonight my plan is to trim trim trim!