An almost complete (missing the tagline) comp of the cover of our forthcoming O'Reilly book, Designing Mobile Interfaces, by Steven Hoober & Eric Berkman. I thought it would be alphabetical, but now we know who's more important :)

Introduction

If you are picking up this book, you don't need to be told how ubiquitous mobile is, how quickly it is growing and changing, and how much it is supplanting desktop computing, and even more traditional media such as film, television, radio, papers and books.

Mobile is so huge and growing so fast, that astonishing numbers from just a few years ago pale in comparison. So much so, that we won't even bother quoting any figures, as they will be quaint far before the rest of the content looses its relevance.

One thing that has not yet happened is true standards of design. There are just now movements to design the mobile experience first. A good reason is that in many markets, many of your customers look at your website on mobiles more than desktops.

Yet, too much design is based on older paradigms for desktop, or even for TV or print. Within mobile, too many design discussions are very narrowly focused. They pay special attention to applications on a single platform, or only to the mobile web. And almost always at the specific expense of every other platform. Certainly, almost no one discusses anything but smartphones, despite huge marketshare and vast use rates of featurephones.

Fragmentation is discussed as a bad thing for marketing, and sometimes for design, but designers themselves contribute too often by focusing on pixel-based layouts, and the specifics of their favorite OS. This does no one any good, and is especially pointless when you consider the user. Devices generally have many more features and methods of interaction in common than their differences might imply.

Serious mobile design now, and especially in the future, will require building for every user, and providing some solution on every platform.

This book offers a set of common patterns for interaction design on all types of mobile devices. A few patterns require specific hardware or form factors, but most are absolutely universal.

Most do not concern themselves at the top level with implementation details. The correct solution is correct whether at the OS level, as an application or as a website.

Of course, there are notes to discuss alternatives, methods and limitations to assist with decision making. And, many of the specific patterns are coupled with alternatives or variations that allow similarly-useful solutions to be achieved on any type of device.

It's a wiki, but also a book (to be released in October). We need to keep things in synch, so please see the help tab for formatting information, be respectful of content on the site, and add your notes and comments to the appropriate section at the bottom of each page.

For information or to get access to the wiki for editing Contact us

Contact @shoobe01 or @ericberkman if you don't see us responding to your change fast enough.

We're editing again: Notes and in-progress pages are the norm for the month of July.

Yeah, it's sub-optimal to read this on some mobile devices. Oh, the irony. We know. This was quick and cheap. But actually, is good enough we often do writing on handsets while an idea strikes us in an airport or restaurant. It works.

The Patterns

I - Page

Introduction to the Page section. √

2 - Composition

Introduction to the Composition chapter. √

Summary to the Page section Page-Wrapup.√

II - Components

Introduction to the Components section. √

3 - Display of Information

Introduction to the Display of Information chapter. √

4 - Control & Confirmation

Introduction to the Control & Confirmation chapter. √

5 - Revealing More Information

Introduction to the Revealing More Information chapter. √

Summary to the Component Section Component Wrapup √

III - Widget

Introduction to the Widget section. √

6 - Lateral Access

Introduction to the Lateral Access chapter. √

7 - Drilldown

Introduction to the Drilldown chapter. √

8 - Labels & Indicators

Introduction to the Labels & Indicators chapter. √

9 - Information Controls

Introduction to the Information Controls section. √

Summary to the Widget Section Widget Wrapup √

IV - Input & Output

Introduction to the Input & Output section. √

10 - Text & Character Input

Introduction to the Text & Character Input section. √

11 - General Interactive Controls

Introduction to the General Interactive Controls section. √

12 - Input & Selection

Introduction to the Input & Selection section. √

13 - Audio & Vibration

Introduction to the Audio & Vibration section. √

14 - Screens, Lights & Sensors

Introduction to the Screens, Lights & Sensors section. √

Summary to the Input & Output Section Input & Output Wrapup √

V - Stuff We're (Probably) Not Putting In the Book

We made up a LOT of patterns as short descriptions, and when we got around to organizing and detailing them... they didn't all sound that good after all. Also, we have to keep the book at a reasonable size. But, we don't want to loose track of these, so here's an un-ordered list of those ideas we've kicked aside. For now.

Design Tools, Further Information, or Maybe Just an Appendix

To keep the patterns focused on design and implementation, I have pulled all kinds of supporting information out of them. However, a lot of it is still very interesting. And there's no good way for a designer or developer to get a summary of this sort of information.

So, I've included it here as an Appendix, ordered so you can just pretty much read it from one end to the other.

You'll find that a few of the Appendices are actually just lists of resources. And in this day and age, resources are links to websites. Which, of course, will go out of date soon. Luckily, we keep this up to date on the 4ourth Mobile Design Wiki.

Visit any time to get the latest updates, or just to avoid typing in long links from a piece of paper. And please come add your own information, or update old or changed links.

A huge amount of our reference is actually looking at devices, and that includes GPS, TV, and whatever else we could find. For the book, we took around 1,300 screenshots (or, for older or weirder devices, photos). They are all in this group on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoobe01/sets/72157627094523863/with/5972038915/

Events & Locations

Eric works in Sydney, Australia. Steven lives in the Kansas City, Missouri (US) area, but is mostly around Charlotte, NC or New York City during the week.

We're pretty busy with day jobs, freelance jobs and actually writing the book. But if we're scheduled to go somewhere and talk about anything remotely related to mobile, much less the book, we'll post it here:

References