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For many years, there was no particular assistance provided to those seeking to design for mobile handsets. Over time, books and other documents and supporting information has emerged. Now, major software vendors like Adobe are embedding mobile-centric technology in their products.
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 • [[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javame/index.html|Java ME Landing Page]] a bunch of introductions, as well as developer resources, from Oracle.  * [[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javame/index.html|Java ME Landing Page]] a bunch of introductions, as well as developer resources, from Oracle.

For many years, there was no particular assistance provided to those seeking to design for mobile handsets. Over time, books and other documents and supporting information has emerged. Now, major software vendors like Adobe are embedding mobile-centric technology in their products.

Mobile Design Elements

Templates & Stencils

These are graphic items you can import to various drawing programs (mostly the Adobe suite) to create designs and mockups. The organization may confuse you a bit. Up top are people (like us!) who give lots of different templates, and generic ones. Then I list them by platform, because way too many people are making a single set of Photoshop tools for the iPad, et. al.

Note that this is just those we've found, or found useful. Many more are likely stuck in the various manufacturer and OS developer links under UI Guidelines below.

Also, we do not use raster tools for wireframing, or even OmniGraffle much. Most of these are not reviewed, just listed. If dumb, or incorrectly categorized, please fix it.

4ourth Mobile

A bunch of mobile components (and some other info, like typography) for general mobile design, as well as gestures, and even iPhone specific stuff for the fanbois. Includes the templates used to make the illustrations and diagrams for this wiki. Last updated 17 April 2011:

If you are still on Freehand (and we salute you) the old (September 2009), not-at-all-updated version is still available. It has Little Springs branding, as that's who Steven worked for when he made it.

Punchcut

Yahoo!

  • Yahoo! Stencil Kit many non-mobile parts, but also useful general and iPhone bits and pieces.

Nokia, Et. Al.

Includes Symbian Foundation, and so forth. Even though some of those are not really 100% Nokia.

Graffletopia

Mobility

  • Mobility A free set of mobile UI design elements. I haven't looked, so it could be lying and only be iOS. Someone move it or tell me if it's not generic. (.psd)

Squetch

  • Wireframe Sketching Kit with tools for Browser, iPad upright, iPad landscape, Smartphone, GUI-Elements and Form-Elements. Not sure what some mean, but I guess "Smartphone" means they are trying to not just be iOS, so they get a category. (Illustrator)

MS Windows Phone 7

iOS

iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

Android OS

All versions, all platforms, all operator overlays.

UI Guidelines

Documentation, forums, lists and other methods device and OS makers use to communicate their UI guidelines. These periodically move, so if you see a broken link, please update it.

Templates and stencils, even from these people, will be listed above where known.

Android (from Google and OEMs)

Apple iOS

HP Palm WebOS

Microsoft Windows CE, Mobile & Phone

Nokia Family (S40, S60, Symbian, MeeGo)

RIM Blackberry

Smartphone

QNX / Tablet

Samsung Bada

MeeGo

J2ME

The Java Platform, Micro Edition (the same thing used to have a "2" in there, and is still mostly referred to by that abbreviation) is a common platform for running applications on practically all featurephones, worldwide. It was developed by Sun, so is now owned by Oracle. Installation methods vary, and some applications will work on basically all devices, while some are targeted to specific operators, regions, manufacturers or classes of devices. J2ME runs on three billion handsets right this minute. This is a big deal.

BREW

A competitor to J2ME, created by Qualcomm, also allowing a (more or less) single piece of software to run on a range of handsets.

FeaturePhone UI Guidelines

Featurephones do have operating systems, and native applications are developed outside of the manufacturer's direct control for these devices. However, they generally cannot be installed by end users. These are created or specified by operators, and installed at the factory. This is mostly stuff like a custom phone book. Even the default browser is likely to be J2ME or BREW.

While UI guidelines do exist, these are generally proprietary so cannot be distributed. We have a few of them, but cannot share them. They would also be generally irrelevant; if you have to develop for this situation, you will be given the most applicable version by the operator and/or manufacturer.

Drawing Tool, Tips & Tricks

Just a list that we keep for ourselves, so we don't forget things. Feel free to add items, or even categories, if there's a tool you want to share your notes about.

Links, Guides, Other Stuff

Drawing Tools & Templates (last edited 2013-09-04 04:31:49 by shoobe01)