Tapbots

Application company Tapbots caused waves in the iPhone and iPod Touch market with their first app for the mobile platform called Weightbot, a simple application that helps you track your weight loss or gain. Weightbox won a handful of awards in 2008 and has received glowing reviews from some of the most vocal critics and reviewers in the technology sector. Well, the waves appear to be continuing with the recent release of their second application called Convertbot, another simple application that specializes in unit conversion.

So okay, what’s the big deal? Why is this company stirring up the community? The answers are simple:

1. The masterminds behind Tapbots, designer Mark Jardine and developer Paul Haddad, are complete experts in their trades and obviously pay extremely close attention to every detail. These apps are prime illustrations of the successful marriage of design and development. The shapes, textures, transitions, and color schemes fit perfectly with the functionality and underlying guts of the app. The interaction with the UI is in tune with the multi-touch gestures established by Apple without resorting to the native UI elements, which contributes to the uniqueness of the app as well as making it intuitive to use. The UI they’ve developed for their apps is simply striking and easily stands out among the many thousands of apps that occupy the same “shelf space” of the iTunes App Store, but most importantly it doesn’t get in the way of the user’s experience, which leads me to my next point.

2. Both of these apps do exactly what they say they do and nothing else which means they focus solely on providing the user only what they need and expect. In application design the temptation to add in too many features is a common pitfall. The thought that “more features = better application” is a myth that was debunked most publicly by 37Signals and definitely supported here by Tapbots. On a mobile platform simplicity is even more vital because you’re dealing with a smaller screen, less amount of physical storage, potentially slower connections to the web, and usually much more of a “get in and get out” experience.

3. At SXSW this year I learned a valuable tip from a game designer (I fail to remember his name) about UI design on a mobile platform. He said that with regards to touchscreen devices it’s important to remember that the user will cover up the app with their hand if they’re interacting with navigational elements located at the top of the screen. Seems obvious enough, but designing for a mobile device with a large touchscreen is a new area for most designers (especially web designers) who are used to thinking about navigation from a top-down perspective and via a keyboard and mous. With Weightbot and Convertbot about 90% of the user’s interaction happens at the bottom half of the screen, which means the user doesn’t suffer from interruptions with the experience by bouncing all over the UI with their fingers.

4. Lastly is Tapbots marketing. Their site is just as beautiful as their apps. The homepage hits you up immediately with their products, showcasing them like high-dollar automobiles in a gallery setting, with the exception that to own these two beauties will only set you back a collective total of $3. Each page devoted to a product is clean and orderly, features the screenshots you expect to see and a looping demo video inlaid in an iPhone which is a nice bonus. Convertbot however has an additional demo video that I’ve included here:

This video falls right in line with the rest of the spirit of their aesthetics. Sure, they could have used a camcorder from Best Buy to film this thing and show a guy holding an iPhone and interacting with the app. But instead they used a Canon 5D mkII with a 70-200mm lens, fixed the iPhone dead-center in the frame and flanked by subtle backlighting to make it pop, and then only have the users hand in the frame when it’s actually interacting with the app as well as having it slightly out of focus so that your eye never leaves the app.

Again, extreme attention to detail.

Successful executions of design and development like this get my juices flowing. I’m hoping for the opportunity to work on some mobile applications for clients, mostly for the challenge rather than the actual result. Until then there has been plenty learned by studying the products by Tapbots that can be carried over into UI and application designs of all platforms.