Brent Sordyl's blog

Developing iPad Applications – Free Course from Carnegie Mellon on iTunes U

February 11, 2012 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

This course will focus on the design and implementation of iPad applications that help users visualize and make sense of large data sets. Course content will bridge theory and practice, giving students a basic background in visualization and the cognitive processes involved in transforming visual representations into mental representations, insight and discovery; and showing how to implement these techniques in real applications for the iPad. Industry iOS developers will teach the software engineering topics, focusing on the latest technologies available in the newly released iOS 5. Prior programming experience is required, and object-oriented programming experience is recommended.

(Full Story: Developing iPad Applications – Free Course from Carnegie Mellon on iTunes U)

ios, ipad

cmu, ios, ipad

Deploy to the OpenShift cloud from an iPad

December 28, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

With Hazel, DropBox, OpenShift and my iPad and I managed to create a little “Cloud IDE” to enable editing and deployment to OpenShift from my iPad.

(Full Story: Deploy to the OpenShift cloud from an iPad)

cloudcomputing, ipad

cloudcomputing, ipad, openshift

GitHub: khan-mobile – A mobile application for Khan Academy.

July 14, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

(Full Story: GitHub: khan-mobile – A mobile application for Khan Academy.)

e-learning, ipad

e-learning, ipad, khanacademy

Ex-Pixar animator’s iPad book takes interactive design to a new level

July 12, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

This iPad book is just as much book as it is animation and game, with interaction all throughout the app, such as having you draw or play a piano, participate in mini-games and even, as the children will love, play with food.

(Full Story: Ex-Pixar animator’s iPad book takes interactive design to a new level)

ipad

Database Clients for the iPad

July 5, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

(Full Story: Database Clients for the iPad)

database, ipad

Best Practices of Touch Screen Interface Design

May 17, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Response speed should be of utmost importance.
More space comes in at a close second to speed.
Intuitiveness of your design also becomes a heightened concern.
Ambidextrous design must come into consideration in the touch screen world.
Bright background colors or patterns can hide glare and reduce fingerprints.
Touch screen interfaces are more suited to information retrieval than data entry.
Be aware of screen coverage.
Problems with eye-finger and eye-stylus parallaxes lend even more credence to the argument for big, fat areas to press with plenty of space between them.Best to worst operations: Point, select > Position, orient (rotate), define path > Enter values > Enter text.

So, basically, touch screen interface’s are great for data retrieval, pretty good for data manipulation, and are kinda awful for data entry.

(Full Story: Best Practices of Touch Screen Interface Design)

ipad, iphone, ui, usability, ux

iPad in Business Profiles – Medtronic

April 21, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Medtronic has created more than a dozen in-house iPad apps to access proprietary information, improve efficiency, and enhance customer engagement. The apps are distributed through the Medtronic App Store, a password-protected website that lets the company control access to qualified staff and easily provide app updates.

(Full Story: iPad in Business Profiles – Medtronic)

.net, ipad

Socrative – Student smartphone/tablet response system

April 20, 2011 by Brent Sordyl 0 Comments

Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational games and exercises via smartphones and tablets. Our apps are super simple and take seconds to load and run. Teachers control the questions and games on their laptop, while students respond and interact through their smartphones/laptops. Run it as an app or on any web browser.

(Full Story: Socrative – Student smartphone/tablet response system)