Being An App Developer is my series documenting how I'm going about designing, developing and releasing my first iPhone app. I won't be sharing too many details about the app itself; since it will probably take a while to develop, there's the possiblilty someone will steal ideas if I reveal too much.

Two things I learned when I started designing the app: the best ideas come naturally, and that starting to design on paper rather than in Photoshop is much better.

Don't force yourself to have an idea

I've only started to develop this app because I already had the idea for it. If you don't already have an idea for an app, don't try to make one up just so you have something to develop. Chances are, whatever idea you come up with, unless you're some kind of wizard, probably won't be the best idea you've ever had.

A few months ago, I felt like writing an iPhone application, so I tried to come up with an idea for something to do. It ended up being yet another RSS reader, which not only did I not particularly want to develop, but during the design process, I ended up copying ideas from other apps.

When an idea does come to you by itself, that's the time to start developing.

Start on paper

This is something I learned very recently. Start designing on paper, with a pencil, before you start creating mockups in Photoshop or other programs.

By starting on paper, it gives you the freedom to be as rough as you like with your drawing. If you use Photoshop, you'll be more likely to feel that you need to be pixel-perfect, which in turn means you'll probably spend longer nudging layers around than reworking parts you don't like.

This paragraph from an article on The Next Web sums my thoughts on this up nicely:

It's genuinely tempting to begin all of your projects with a computer if you're going to finish there in the end, but the results will be so quickly polished that you'll settle too early. Your results will keep you from experimenting in the raw.

Working on paper first is great, since not only can you make changes as you go along, it's much easier to write notes alongside your work. It's a lot less effort to scribble something next to a drawing than it is to, say, change to the Text tool in Photoshop, click in your document, type the note and commit the changes.

Finally, paper allows you to keep away from UI design early on and focus on the UX design. If you use a computer to create your first mockup, you'll end up spending ages deciding on colours and fonts before you've even worked out what's going to be on the screen.