iPad User Interface Design Suggestions

Question

I am writing my first native iPad app and I have a general UI question. I am horrible at user interface design and I'm looking for general guidance on what to use for my layout. Specifically I have a pretty simple master detail app that fits nicely into the generic app template that XCode provides. The app keeps track of inspection dates for equipment. I have a master view where the people enter info about a specific device (make, model, serial number, name, location, point of contact, email, phone, etc). The master view presents just location and name. When they click the master, all the data is displayed in the detail view.

There is an annual inspection required for each device and there is a standard form that is to be filled out. There are 20 items to inspect and I need to collect/display a label (the inspection step), status (pass/fail/whatever) and a comment field for generic text.

So I need to execute an inspection. I could just hand layout 20 uilabels, 20 ON/OFF switches (or 3 position), and 20 UITextViews but that sounds really kludgy. I could put the three items in a custom UITableViewCell but I'm not really comfortable that is the right UI approach either.

How would you map an existing paper process (this starts as a pdf that is printed) to an iPad app? Would you make it look as much like the old paper as possible?

Answer 1

One thing I have learned is that when people have an expectation as to how the information will be presented, then you should conform to that expectation. This is why Apple has interface guidelines for general application development. However, in your case, your guideline should be what your user is already expecting. If that differs from the Apple guidelines, I recommend you lean heavily toward your users' expectations. In this case they may be expecting something along the lines of how the paper form is set up.

Without seeing the original paper form, it's hard to advise you how it can be converted into a Master/Detail format while conforming to their expectations that were set by the paper form.

However, you may find it helpful to augment that by adding views that allow them to focus on individual devices, showing the three fields that you mentioned, with the Master/Detail arrangement. At the same time, they should be able to revert to a view they are familiar with, even if it is only to view the status (rather than to update status).