Optimizely for iOS
It really is the life these days for mobile app developers. We covered StandIn last week, and this week, we have Optimizely for iOS. It’s a platform that allows you to do basic A/B testing on your app’s UI. There’s a very nice video on the site that shows exactly how the service can help you, complete with a Flappy Bird reference thrown in for good measure. They have one fantastic live sample for you to check out as well, where you can change the background image, button text and button colour of an app prototype, giving you a glance at how the service would work for your app. Optimizely for iOS is currently in Beta, and you can sign up for it now at this link.
Artsy
Artsy is a fantastic online resource for the artistically inclined. If you know your Monet from your Manet, Artsy is your one-stop shop for everything you’d need to stay involved in the field. They also have a free iPhone app for keeping up to date with art exhibitions around you, exploring art from all over the world, contemporary or otherwise, to finding out how to purchase the art piece that caught your fancy, all the way to having a personal art advisor, Artsy has it all. If art is your daily bread, Artsy will be your baker of choice.
Gift for Starbucks 3.0
This is a fantastic post on Dribbble on the redesign of the gift interface of the Starbucks app. The author, in his words, describes how the incredibly rich variety of card art that was available in the app wasn’t being showcased adequately. They then redesigned the interface to bring the card art front and centre, similar to the way the App Store interface is designed. The carousel effect was deemed to be the best way to showcase all the options they had on hand. It is a fantastically designed app that has only become better, and we only wish the app worked here in India.
Interviewly
Reddit AMAs (Ask Me Anything) are fantastic opportunities for people to get in touch with their heroes/idols, on a medium where everyone is equal, and everyone has a voice. If there can be one criticism that can be levelled at the AMA, it is that the interface is pretty terrible, and some segments get buried under lines and lines of comments, links, etc. Kevin Hoctor, in a post on App.net pointed us to Interviewly, a fantastic website that collates AMAs and refurbishes them in a brand new, amazingly legible skin. The creators have collected and categorised many AMAs on their website in a genial act of internet philanthropy, and we whole heartedly recommend you pay it a visit.
Medium – Improve the payment experience with animations
This fantastic post on Medium offers a succinct view of how using animations can improve customer experience in as tedious a task as making an online payment. The post has been written by Michaël Villar, the UI Developer at Stripe, the online payment system of choice for most websites. Michäel has gone into some real detail to explain the reasons behind choosing a particular animation in a specific situation, and the post also includes some great examples. As an admittedly frequent user of Stripe, I can vouch for the quality and excellent experience associated with it. This post can be a useful source of inspiration for those looking to implement animations in their own UI.
What we published this week
– Sketch 3 – A Few Thoughts
– Morning for iPhone
– Mextures 2.0
– Slicereader
– The Side: Editorial 1.1 Teaser
– Scanbot for Android
– Quoth Steve
– Skala Color
– Pause Magazine — Discover The Best Music Of 2013