Workshop: Designing for Touch

Handheld apps that work by touch require you to design not only how your pixels look, but how they *feel* in the hand. This workshop explores the ergonomic challenges and interface opportunities for designing mobile touchscreen apps. Learn how fingers and thumbs turn desktop conventions on their head and require you to leave behind familiar design patterns. The workshop presents nitty-gritty "rule of thumb" design techniques that together form a framework for crafting finger-friendly interface metaphors, affordances, and gestures for a new generation of mobile apps that inform and delight. This is an intermediate to advanced workshop aimed at designers, developers, and information architects making the transition from desktop to touchscreen apps for mobile and tablet devices.

What will you learn?

• Discover the ergonomic demands of designing for touch.

• Find out how the iPad's form and size create unique design considerations.

• Devise interface metaphors that invite touch.

• Design gesture interactions, and learn techniques to help people discover unfamiliar gestures on their own.

• Learn why buttons are a hack and how to design interfaces without traditional UI controls.

• Train in gesture jiujitsu, the dark art of using awkward gestures for defensive design.

• Explore the psychology behind screen rotation and the opportunities and pitfalls it creates.