Now that I decided to explore the idea of creating an app, I needed to do some research on the history and development of mobile apps.
Brief History of the Mobile App
An article by Matt Strain gives an overview of the history of apps. Strain (2015) mentions that apps were heralded by none other than Steve Jobs himself in the summer of 1983. It was that year that Jobs had predicted the "evolution of a new digital distribution system" and the imminent arrival of apps and app stores. He speculated that the new system would be "a little like a record store where software would be downloaded over phone lines." Even before the smartphone, apps had already existed on devices called Personal Digital Assistants PDAs. The classic Snake Game on the Nokia 6110 was also one of the earliest forms of apps. The App Store was officially launched in 2008 and contained over 500 downloadable apps.
In this article, Matthew Panzarino charts three phases of app development that mark the changes of mobile technology from basic telephony to fulfilling gaming and functional requirements, to "home screen" apps that focused on experience, to less dominating and content-laden apps.
The Three Phases of App Development
Information appliance phase - apps made phones multi-functional, multi-purpose tools
Home Screen Era Phase - every app would compete for a spot on your home screen
The Age of Service Layers - apps are now not intended for "idle browsing" as they only open based on specific purposes and are activated by "contextual signals like hardware sensors, location, history of use and predictive computation." They are also considered as "invisible apps."
UX and UI
In this day and age, I think it's safe to say that we ALL interact with mobile apps. App design involves two fundamental elements: UX or User Experience and UI or User Interface. In a paper by Robert Roth (2017), the difference between these two is idea is expounded:
Therefore, humans use interfaces, but they experience interactions, and it is the experience that determines the success of an interactive product (Norman, 1988). UI design describes the iterative set of decisions leading to a successful implementation of an interactive tool while UX design describes the iterative set of decisions leading to a successful outcome with the interactive, as well as a productive and satisfying process while arriving at this outcome. Accordingly, UI/UX often is reversed as UX/UI to emphasize the importance of designing the overall experience rather than just the interface.
Now, for my project I will only be focusing on UI. I've been a graphic designer for close to ten years now but I have never designed a mobile app. For another course I was taking (Experience Design), I knew we were tasked with creating UIs as part of our final assessment (this was to be done as a group activity though). I decided to take this as new exploratory challenge for this course.
References:
Carson, E. (2019, July 04). Understanding Australian Workplace Culture. Retrieved from ECA Interships: https://internships.eca.edu.au/understanding-australian-workplace-culture/
Evason, N. (2019). Australian Culture. Retrieved from Cultural Atlas: https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/australian-culture/references-ae181e28-8562-46a2-9c81-ba6de3e00c0e#references-ae181e28-8562-46a2-9c81-ba6de3e00c0e
Kimmorley, S. (2016, December 26). 20 things about Australian working culture that can surprise foreigners. Retrieved from Business Insider Australia: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/20-things-about-australian-working-culture-that-can-surprise-foreigners-2015-3
Norvaisaite, V. (2016, January 25). Work Culture in Australia. Retrieved from CareerProfessor.works: https://careerprofessor.works/work-culture-in-australia/
Panzarino, M. (2014, May 16). Foursquare’s Swarm And The Rise Of The Invisible App. Retrieved from TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/15/foursquares-swarm-and-the-rise-of-the-invisible-app/
Roth, R. E. (2017). User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) Design. (J. P. Wilson, Ed.) The Geographic Information Science & Technology Body of Knowledge (2nd Quarter 2017 Edition).
Strain, M. (2015, February 13). 1983 to today: a history of mobile apps. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/feb/13/history-mobile-apps-future-interactive-timeline#targetText=Apps%20emerged%20from%20early%20PDAs%2C%20through%20the%20addictively%20simple%20game,its%20debut%20in%20July%202008.
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