Last year, I designed a cross-platform mobile app experience for an enterprise client. The project was complex—the client had three brands and four apps each (iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry). It was a lot of work.
To design those experiences, I took a hands-on approach: I downloaded the relevant SDKs and experimented with the different UI builders. Grounding myself in each platform’s design patterns and interaction models was essential.
That experimentation enabled me to deliver cross-platform designs that respected the idiosyncrasies of each platform. It was a difficult but highly informative project.
This year, my goal is to start building mobile apps for Android. The timing feels right: the mobile app economy is growing rapidly. Mobile subscribers now outnumber internet users, and people are spending more time on their phones. The shift from web to mobile is well underway.
Why Android? The answer is practicality. Android development is based on Java—the first programming language I ever learned. Working in a familiar language lets me focus on building apps rather than learning new syntax, and the development tools are free.
I’ll be posting a few screens soon from a simple app I’ve been working on this past week. Stay tuned.