Handheld apps that work by touch require you to design not only how your pixels look, but how they *feel* in the hand. This workshop explores the ergonomic challenges and interface opportunities for designing mobile touchscreen apps. Learn how fingers and thumbs turn desktop conventions on their head and require you to leave behind familiar design patterns. The workshop presents nitty-gritty "rule of thumb" design techniques that together form a framework for crafting finger-friendly interface metaphors, affordances, and gestures for a new generation of mobile apps that inform and delight. This is an intermediate to advanced workshop aimed at designers, developers, and information architects making the transition from desktop to touchscreen apps for mobile and tablet devices.

What will you learn?

• Discover ergonomic guidelines for comfortable tapping and what that means for the visual layout of mobile apps.
• Find out how the form and context of tablets create different interface requirements from phone handsets.
• Devise interface metaphors that invite touch and create emotional attachment.
• Explore how touch suggests subtle cues for how your app works, and learn how to make use of this new class of affordances.
• Learn why buttons are a hack. Tap into direct manipulation of content to encourage exploration in ways that traditional controls cannot.
• Design gesture interactions, and learn techniques to help people discover unfamiliar gestures on their own.
• Train in gesture jiujitsu, the dark art of using awkward gestures for "defensive design" and protecting against accidental mistaps.
• Explore the psychology behind screen rotation and the opportunities and pitfalls it creates for designers.

For months, Scott Jenson has been telling people to prepare for the upcoming zombie apocalypse of devices.

While the CDC issues zombie guidelines telling people to stock up on water, food and medications, this workshop focuses on giving you the tools you really need to survive the inevitable infestation.

Our preparedness kit includes:

• Responsive web design
• Mobile first responsive web design
• Baseball bats
• Device detection
• Sledgehammers
• JQuery mobile
• PhoneGap

In the short time we have, we won't be able to make you an expert in each tool. But we will give you everything you need to start building your own preparedness kit and how to choose which tools are right for you.