iPad Orientation Paradigm

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iPad Orientation Paradigm

I'm not a super awesome designer so this new paradigm has me a little cranky. The iPad is not supposed to have a standard orientation, and should/shall display screen contents at whichever orientation the user decides. This has me sort of stumped. I can keep my UI designed the way I want it in landscape mode, but switching to portrait, I just can't determine the best way to present app content.

I know it's all speculation at this point, but what are the chances we can override the autoRotateToOrientation to only include the orientation of our choice? Apple ignored the HIG on a lot of issues for iPhone, including splash screens, saving state, etc.

I know we can't really argue with Apple, but doesn't it sound slightly ridiculous to reject an app because it won't rotate to portrait?

I've come a long way porting some code to iPad and it works great in landscape mode. I guess only time will tell. What do you all think?

+3 A:

This video: Designing for the iPad from the free Stanford iPhone Programming course might interest you.

If you also registered for the paid iPhone developer program, then I believe there's also the HIG available for the iPad in the site.

paul_sns 2010-02-23 00:45:38

Thanks for that link!!!

JustinXXVII 2010-02-23 04:30:26

+2 A:

Why not design your UI to be fluid? Keep the most important elements high in the hierarchy and let the others flow further down the screen when viewing in portrait mode?

nickfrench 2010-02-23 00:51:09

I like this suggestion. What I'm thinking of right now is making a paper template of the iPad and just sketching in screens until i find something useful.

JustinXXVII 2010-02-23 04:29:44

You could also try paper prototyping - I find that it can be a useful exercise. Sketch the rough dimensions on an iPad on a piece of paper. Then sketch out a bunch of boxes for each UI element you want in the interface on another piece of paper. Make the boxes the minimum width you think each element should be displayed. Cut out the boxes, and just play around with arranging the cut pieces of paper on your iPad sketch in portrait mode and landscape mode until you find an arrangement that works.

nickfrench 2010-02-23 17:36:52

ansaurus

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