Mobile Interface and Design

 The two articles we read for this week both made me think about how I use my IPad. To be honest, I have never thought about how apps are designed and structured. I can definitely relate to a lot of the issues that were outlined in both the articles. Sometimes I feel like text is okay to read, but impossible to click because it is too small. I also can’t stand when random ads pop up when I am using an app, because this can be distracting and quite annoying. The article from a father’s perspective shed a new view of how apps can be difficult for children to navigate. If we are going to bring IPads into the classroom, it is important that young children are able to easily use the apps without too much trouble.

One app that I really struggled using was the voice thread app for my IPad. I felt like the mobile app design was not user-friendly at all. The first time I opened the app it prompted me to sign in, but would not let me move past this notification. I had to close and restart the app a few times before I was able to successfully sign in and use the app. I also had a hard time uploading my videos on this app, because the video took so long to upload. When I was trying to upload my video, there were a few times when I thought it did not upload (it did not make it clear that the video was uploaded). I also accidently uploaded a comment to the wrong voice thread video. I also had an issue playing other student’s comments (they took forever to load), and was not able to navigate from comment to comment. Some of these issues might not just be the app, but may be my unfamiliarity with the app, or even my internet connection. Either way, I preferred to use my laptop for the voice thread comments instead of the app.