Chapter 1, Design Principles and General Design Planning, teaches you the basic design principles that will lead you to a clear understanding of the book's content. It will cover evolutionary aspects that largely determine the way humans perceive the world, showing principles for good design aimed at real people. In addition to general design principles, you will understand the importance of adapting the design solutions to the environment and to the final scenario in which the solution is used.
A general overview of the design process will introduce the context of the book and the journey it proposes. Each chapter of the book works as a coherent unit, describing one step of the process, but it will also work as a complete solution when read as a whole.
Chapter 2, Research - Learning from Your Users, explains the need for a deep understanding of the problem before jumping in to solve it. A good study of potential users' mental model will allow you to express the interactions of your app in users own terms.
Finding patterns and conventions will help the designer take the right decisions when exploring possible solutions. Also, it will explain how to put useful methods into practice to learn key aspects from your users behaviors.
Chapter 3, Exploring Ideas - Sketching, explores how to create quick sketches to explore innovative ideas and present them to the team and other stakeholders. Using pen and paper, you'll be able to find new directions for your solution you had never thought of before. This chapter contains tips, examples, and a working process to guide idea exploration.
Chapter 4, Mobile Patterns - Web App, Android, and iOS Best Practices, details how to create a multichannel product. The current approaches will be presented in an easy and structured way. The chapter will cover the main mobile platforms based on the number of users, and it will further explain the key differences the designer must know about to design a successful cross-platform product.
Chapter 5, Detail Your Solution - Wireframes and Mockups, proposes a working process to explain your solution in detail, creating detailed documents that will help the development team understand and follow the design concept. You will learn how to create the right specifications for both Android and iOS developers, and also how to create sets of assets for different screen resolutions and different platforms. The chapters will highlight the importance of motion in today's designs and how it affects user perception.
Chapter 6, Prototyping - Bring Your Ideas to Life, describes how to create a testable version of your ideas in the early stages of the design process. It will provide general guidelines for planning your prototyping process. It will also explore different prototyping tools and discuss their pros and cons. You will learn how and when you should use each approach, based on the project requirements and the complexity of the proposed project features.
Chapter 7, Prototyping with Motion - Using Tumult Hype, outlines how to create an application prototype with a timeline-based prototyping tool. You will learn how to use motion to support your ideas, showing interactions in a visual way, and its advantages and what it represents to the process. For this step-by-step guide, you will use one of the best tools in the market, Tumult Hype, a keyframe-based animation system. Tumult is a company founded by two Apple veterans, and the tool has received awards and tremendous praise from its users.
Chapter 8, Prototyping with Code - Using Framer Studio, focuses on how to create a prototype using a programming-based tool. Readers with coding experience will be able to apply the prototyping mindset to a familiar environment. It will cover the step-by-step process with Framer Studio, a design tool of reference. Framer Studio is used by top designers at tech start-ups and design schools worldwide.
Chapter 9, User Testing, dives into how to test your prototypes with real users and learn by observing their interactions. The chapter contains a plan to follow for moderated tests. It will explain how to plan and develop a testing session and also cover general details on unmoderated tests. The chapter also gives a clear view about the importance of testing at scale for big and growing projects, covering aspects about the definition of metrics and A/B testing.