A developer who is a designer. The ultimate goal. This is what most people/companies don't get when they want to build an iOS app. That the developer SHOULD be the designer. Especially on iOS.
Yet startups still waste a ton of money of some UX monkeys, some designers and a developer.<p>Just get one or two guys (depending on project size) who can code AND design. It's always going to be more efficient and better.
I was unimpressed when Apple removed their 'refresh' button in iPhone 'Mail' and replaced it with a pull-down gesture. How would a someone who has never before used a touch-screen device know how to refresh the list?
> Mr. Brichter was the first developer to create or help popularize app features such as pulling on a touch screen to refresh a page, panels that slide out from the side of a screen and the "cell swipe," which is swiping to uncover a list of hidden buttons.<p>Actually, all of these three examples seem bad to me. I guess such hidden features make sense on an iPhone with small screen and one button, but there always has to be some indication that additional buttons are there. Conformng Android apps have a menu button, either hardware or on-screen, and you can always be sure to find functionality there. I really don't want to have to swipe around to find expected features.
loren gave a great talk at stanford. it was a while back but still interesting.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zd3iNOXTow" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zd3iNOXTow</a>
I still don't think most devs know what to do with the 'hamburger button'. Although some follow Brichter and use it as a handle to slide a side panel out, I've also seen it used strictly as a toggle to slide the same pannel out (OSX 10.8, OrderAhead). In other cases, I've seen it used to just reveal a popup options menu (Chrome) or act as a handle to reorganize lists (iOS).<p>Some consistency here would be nice.
What was interesting to me in this piece is that he lives in Philadelphia, not Silicon Valley. In contrast to all the "there's not enough developers!" and "everything happens in the valley - you have to move here", there's someone who is universally recognized as a leader in this industry, and he lives in Philly. Perhaps more companies expanding their views beyond who lives in a few square miles on the planet might discover, nurture and benefit from more "outside" talent.
Interesting (and cool) that he came to design with a EE degree, so he really does understand the <i>entire</i> stack, from elegant user experience down to the p-n-p junction.