On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Shivan Kannan<[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello
>
> This is iPhone application related.
> There is a screen that displays a list of devices. For every device
> in the list the user can perform one of the following
> 1. browse into the directory of the device
> 2. see device properties
> 3. see home page of the device
> 4. see settings for that device
>

> My question: Is it a good idea to have the four options display on
> this second screen showing the directory of deivce? The four options
> has got to act on the device and not on the directory itself. If user
> goes browsing deeper into the directory, the options change and
> actions have to act on the files within the directory and not on the
> device.

I think you are falling into the trap of menu-driven design. Perhaps
try breaking apart that a little bit?

One option is to have the  screen simply display the directory, with
buttons/tabs at the top for the other three options. This converts
your hierarchical menus into a tabbed display, reducing one layer of
menus. The whole "screen" with all four options is all about the
device.

I imagine more options are available.


> >From your experience in designing interactions for iPhone
> applications, have you come across such a problem? How should it be
> handled? Is there a convention sort of flow followed for iPhone app
> dealing with such type of interaction?

As a rule of thumb, 80% of iPhone apps are poorly designed. They are
pretty, but not well designed. The percent may be higher. Other than
Apple guidelines (which they do not always follow) there aren't too
many conventions that I would follow just yet.


~~~~~
Barbara Ballard
Skype: barbara_ballard
Twitter, Delicious: barbaraballard
email: [email protected]
1.785.838.3003
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