Recently, we talked in this space about user experience (UX) and why it’s so important to get it right when designing, building, and selling a software product. To recap, Google has come up with a handy way to evaluate and give a numerical value to a product’s UX, which helps guide designers and developers in the right direction to make improvements.
In 2016, Apple found itself engaged in a high-profile dispute with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the privacy and device encryption features of the company’s iPhone product line. The specific iPhone in question had been in the possession of Syed Rizwan Farook, who was suspected of conducting a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The FBI recovered the phone after Farook was killed in a shootout with police.
Today we start a series of blog posts that dive into the design and development process we use here at AndPlus.
Our philosophy at AndPlus follows the Agile development methodology. By way of review, Agile breaks down a development project into short (one- or two-week) mini development cycles called sprints. A fundamental principle of Agile is that at the end of each development sprint, the team should have a working (albeit not necessarily complete) version of the software product.
Have you ever used software whose user interface had some or all of the following characteristics?
If so, you’re not alone—in fact, if you haven’t encountered such software, you are in a tiny minority.
The world, it seems, is getting dark.
It’s not for want of sunlight or electricity to power our myriad lighting devices. (Indeed, light pollution is considered by many to be a growing problem with environmental and public health implications.) It’s an aesthetic preference for darker colors in our daily lives. Our kitchen appliances have gone from white to black or unpainted stainless steel. Computer cases, for which “ivory” was once de rigeur, are now almost universally black or some shade of dark grey. Look around on our roads and you’ll mainly see cars that are black (even matte black), grey, or some muted shade of silver.
We’ve all seen examples of bad design in our daily lives: appliances that break on first use, floor plans that are difficult to navigate, and of course, computer software that makes tasks harder, not easier.
