iPhone Prototyping Best Practices

Prototyping for the iPhone platform has its own unique challenges and is very different from structuring a web application. Since the UI elements are limited to what’s offered by Apple, and every application on the platform has to adhere to their strict human interface guidelines, it’s crucial to get a feel of what iPhone applications are capable of, and how they should be designed, before starting the process.

This document will serve as a hub for gathering together a few different types of information:

Methodologies

The first document that should be read by everyone who is going to prototype, design, or develop on the iPhone platform is Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. Getting Started with User Experience provides a good starting point, and the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines is where the rules are outlined. Apple vigurously tests every application submitted to the store against these rules, and most apps are rejected if they don’t meet the criteria.

If you are developer who is new to the platform, you should also read the iPhone Application Programming Guide, which provides a detailed overview of the whole process.

Resources

Creating a prototype is one of the most important steps in an iPhone app’s development cycle. There are several different tools that can be used:

Examples

Here are a few good interface examples:

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