Learning iOS Design: A Hands-On Guide for Programmers and Designers

5. The Mockups

At last, it’s time to develop and polish the skin of your app. A mockup (or comp) is an image that precisely (or very nearly) represents your intentions for the final visual appearance of a screen. Ideally, it’d be impossible to tell a completed mockup from a screenshot of the real app. That’s the quality commonly known as “pixel-perfect.” (Indeed, many a designer has been momentarily puzzled when their absentminded clicks or taps on the controls in a mockup don’t yield any response.) In reality, though, mockups often have a few stray pixels or approximate colors here and there. Now is the time to make all the specific visual-design decisions you’ve been encouraged to push to the back of your mind during the earlier design phases. ...