A Page is the area that occupies the entire viewport of the mobile screen during its current state. Based on cultural norms of reading conventions and how people process information, we must design and layout page information accordingly. We also want to create information that is easily accessed, and easy to locate. Our users are not stationary, or focused entirely on the screen. They’re everywhere and they want information quickly and easy to manipulate.
The Page that will be discussed here is subdivided into the following chapter:
Chapter 2, Wrapper
Wrapper
A wrapper is a template that is used to organize page information consistently across the OS. Using a wrapper allows information to be organized hierarchically on a page. This organization will relate to the user’s mental model of page structure to quickly increase learnability and satisfaction while decreasing performance errors.
This chapter will discuss the following topics:
- Templates.
- The Concept of a Wrapper.
- Context is Key.
- Scenario: Yearbook Application.
Patterns for Wrapper: Scroll, Annunciator Row, Notifications, Titles, Revealable Menu, Fixed Menu, Home & Idle Screens, Lock Screen, Interstitial Screen, and Advertising.
Digital Display Page Layout Principles
Using page layouts can provide a consistent user and brand experience that support content organization and layout, advertising requirements, navigation, and message display characteristics such as legibility and readability.
Mobile users have specific tasks and goals. They require the information to be quickly located and effectively organized. Therefore, the page layouts need to reflect the mental models and schemas understood by the users. If these are ignored, users will become frustrated, unsatisfied with their experience, create miscues and errors, and might even give up!
Furthermore, using page layouts wisely, allows you to organize and place content effectively on valuable screen real estate where every pixel is important.
Page Layout Guidelines for Mobile Users
- Mobile screen real estate is valuable. Avoid uses of pointless banners, bars, useless images, and graphics that take up space.
Lay out elements with a design hierarchy. There are optional versions, and some interactive types insist time is another component, but for simplicity it's: Position > Size > Shape > Contrast > Color > Form. The most important items are larger, higher, brighter, and so on.
- Consider Gestalt Laws of Closure, Continuity, Figure and Ground, Proximity, Relative Size, Similarity, and Symmetry. These laws were created based on how we visually recognize and process patterns. See Part II Components for more detailed information.
- Use consistent and simple navigation elements. People have limits to the amount of information they can store in their short term memory. Therefore, they automatically filter information that is important and stands out. Information elements that are excessively displayed and irrelevant will be ignored and overlooked.
- Wayfinding is really rooted in real-world navigation, like getting around town, or finding the right room in a building. Kevin Lynch, an environmental psychologist, established five wayfinding elements that people use to identify their position: Paths, Edges, Nodes, Landmarks, and Districts. These same environmental elements are also referenced when navigating digital content on websites or mobile devices. Page numbers, titles, headers and footers, tabs, links and more provide a lot of help that we've inherited almost as a whole for interactive design.
- Consider how users will view your page when plotting content. Generally, users will look for high-priority information in the upper left of the content area (Nielsen: 2010).
- Multi-column text is not to meet some design style, but to restrict line length. And line lengths are not based on fixed sizes, or even percentages of page width, but on character count. Long lines are harder to read. Anything over about 60-65 characters (averaged) is the maximum length you want to use. Too short depends on how many long words you have.
- Titles describe pages, elements within a page, and content sections. Use them consistently and appropriately.
- ANNUNCIATOR ROWS
- The term false bottom, or false top, is interactive design specific, and refers to users thinking they are at the end of the content and not continuing to scroll. If text flows from one column to the next, or one page to the next, it must be designed so the relationship between them is clear. "Continued on page 86" is all but a hyperlink from the past, which has been inherited by interactive; "read the rest of this blog post" is basically the same thing.
- Interactive systems have an additional challenge in that the page might be larger than the screen (or viewport as we often call it).
- PARALLAX
Message Display Characteristics
Mobiles are used differently from desktops, and even most print use of type. They are closest, perhaps, to signage in that they must be comprehended by all user populations, under the broadest possible range of environmental conditions (e.g. poor lighting) and at a glance. The typical mobile user is working with the device in a highly interruptible manner, glancing at the screen for much of their interaction.
The message display elements must be immediately detected, discriminated, identified, readable and comprehendible. In essence, they must be legible. In order to create effective message displays that are legible for mobile displays, understanding the basic elements of type is important. This information will assist you when choosing the appropriate typeface for your design.
Typographical Features, Baselines, and Measurements
Font – A font is a physical character or characters that is produced and displayed.
• Typeface- Typeface is a collection of characters-letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation marks, etc. • Glyph- The smallest shape of a character that still conveys its meaning. • Baseline- is the axis where the main body of text sits. Some letters may slightly extend below the baseline • X-height- is the height of the main lowercase body from the baseline. It is the size of the lower case letter x. It excludes ascenders and descenders. For Mobile and Small-Screen Devices, the x-height must be between 65 and 80% of the cap height. • Cap height- is the distance from the baseline to the height of the capital letter and the ascender. When figuring a font’s point size, the cap height is used. • Descender Line-The descender is the part of a letter that extends below the baseline. The descender line is the axis in which all descenders within the font family rest against. For Mobile and Small-Screen Devices, do not use excessive descenders – avoid exceeding 15 - 20% of the cap-height, to avoid excessive leading. • Ascender- An ascender is part of the letter that extends above the x-height. For Mobile and Small-Screen Devices, do not have ascenders above the cap height – critical for non-English languages • Counter forms- Counter forms are the negative spaces formed inside characters and also between characters, known as kerning. • Stress - Stress is adding curvature to the straight shapes of a letterform. This is generally not desired for mobile faces. At best, the small rendered size will simply blur out these subtleties. It could also make it impossible to render sharp letters at small sizes. • Stems- Stems are main vertical or diagonal elements of a character. CONSIDER? • BOWLS