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ne of my goals for 2023 was to learn a little more about app development. I decided to start learning SwiftUI, and began by creating mocks of a task management app in Figma, calling it Loops. Figma allows me to pull in elements from Apple’s own Design Library and use actual iOS elements as a guiding point for my designs. You can check out some of my design work here.
When starting to code the initial app views and workflows, I began with learning common SwiftUI design patterns and getting a feel for how to construct a robust-yet-intuitive layout using Views and ViewComponents. I wanted the app to feel simple and easy to use, without too much of a learning curve. Most of all, I wanted it to be a smooth and buttery user experience, with a minimalist design and bold colors to visually anchor the user.
I took great care in adding smooth and delightful animations throughout the prototype, especially when it came to the Nav Bar at the bottom. I was able to craft a Nav Bar prototype that is easily reusable and extensible, with 5 buttons present and a color-shifting highlight that indicates what button the user tapped.
The back-end of the app was powered by Google Firebase/Firestore, which was used to push changes to the front-end in real-time with any updates made, enabling a seamless data storage experience for users without having to manually save.
This was an incredibly enjoyable experience, to be able to use Xcode and SwiftUI to rapidly design and iterate on mobile UI/UX experiences, and immediately get feedback by deploying to my own physical devices for real-world testing. One day, I hope to make time to pick up where I last left off and flesh out this prototype (and maybe even push to the App Store!).