I usually don’t take the time to make my iPhone app sketches pertty or precise (because I’m the only one who needs to approve them) but I could see the benefit of a dedicated iPhone UI sketchbook/stencil. There are at least three available. Check the link by clicking the title of this post.

So you’ve got a bazillion CSS galleries for infinite inspiration. Finally we deprived iPhone app designers get TapFancy, a iPhone app design showcase. Be sure to submit your favorite designs (I did).

Looking for the link? Try clicking this post’s title. I am using the Redirectify plugin to redirect you to TapFancy.com. If it works, I’ll keep posting links like this, Gruber style.

Think of a good idea, build it, submit it to the app store. This is the recipe for failure and its the path most developers take.

Designers often advise developers to make their apps more easy to use but I now think that usable is still not enough. The most reliable way to find success on the app store is by having a decent idea and crafting it into a delightful experience (not merely a usable one).

Classics, a wildly successful ebook application, could have saved a lot of development time by using the standard scroll interface for reading ebooks, but they decided, rather, to invest in delight. That tactile page flip, the slight flap noise when the page turns over; these little details combined into an astounding experience that sold like hotcakes.

Realizing this, I looked at the current state of my iPhone app, Grades. It is a good idea with a good user experience. Trash! I am re-evaluating the design with delight in mind. Although the old UI was better than a lot of stuff on the app store, it was boring, not tactile, not delightful.

Below is the latest iteration. I won’t elaborate but this iteration would allow for lots of beautiful, tactile, and fun details that, I think, could play a primary role in the app’s success. Please comment, please critique, please disagree for the benefit of us all.

Functional apps don’t sell anymore. The iPhone has changed everything: now they have to be delightful too. Johnny Holland says that fun is the new usability.

The following videos give you a peek into the process of designing a delightful iPhone app.

Caught on tape: Adaptive Path imagining the delightful (not just the functional)

Smart.fm iPhone App: Learning Experience Concepts, 1 of 2 from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Smart.fm could have slapped together a pretty decent app with the typical flash card interface. That would be decent; it wouldn’t be delightful. Delightful interfaces go the extra mile, they jump out of the box and capture the imagination. Best of all, they sell.

Designing a delightful app in 2 minutes

Convert Design Evolution from tap tap tap on Vimeo.

What an excellent case study! The unit converter app market already had plenty of excellent options, including the delightful ConvertBot but the guys at Tap Tap Tap came in and shook up the market again: they won with function+delight. The combination is genius.

ConvertBot will always have a market: it is more delightful than Convert; but Convert will win out in the end because it found the best compromise between function and delight.

I think I’ve finally got it. In my last post we struggled with finding the compromise between aesthetics and usability. We failed. The first two iterations were stunningly cool but had major usability problems.

The third iteration—which I was quite certain would be it—was infinitely more usable. The design was crystal clear. Unfortunately, it was as boring as a bureaucrat brushing his teeth—for an hour (well, who knows, maybe that would be interesting.)

So I promised, in the comments, to strive for a cunning compromise that hit the sweet spot between usability and beauty. What you see above these words is just that, at least, I think so.

But please, hack away at it. Tear it to pieces in the comments!

Sorry folks, this probably isn’t the “three easy steps” link-bait post you were looking for, I’ll catch you later with one of those. No, this is a quickie in which I thrust upon your eager eyes the opportunity to feast on three iterations of Grades, the not-so-top-secret app we are actively cooking up for you (well, maybe not you because you probably aren’t a college student—our target market—sorry.) You only see three images below, but between those three are hundreds of iterations I would rather not disclose—for one because it would break the blog (and your eyes) and for two because many of them are cruel and unusual (slip me a note and I may consider revealing some of those personally—in a dark closet.)

So brace yourselves for much joy! (You may notice the admiration I express for my own designs but don’t worry about poking my little bubble with a sharp fork; a little cold water in the comments betters my health.)

First try, not bad. Just kinda dark and confusing.

Ooooh! I like it, says I. The gradient. The glow. Surefire recipe for an impulse purchase. Unfortunately when I tried it on people, they were like “looks awesome! What is it?” I have to admit, even I barely understand what that glowing bar represents. Also, as one bystander noted “its a bit dahk”. The bystander was my brother. He suggested a happier color scheme. And on we go.

Green is good but that bar makes me see red

So for one thing, its green. Another, its a lot bigger. But these changes were mainly cosmetic and didn’t really help much. People still didn’t understand what that not-so-glowing bar meant and explaining it would consume an entire post (okay, it wasn’t really that bad but bottom line: students weren’t getting it). Time for something radical.

Woah, its even bigger and hopefully makes a bit of sense

I might be getting ahead of myself (this is fresh off the convert-to-jpeg press) but I think this iteration offers a lot of improvements, at least in terms of usability. I think it pretty much speaks for itself so I’m going to bed. Let me know what you think.