Touch Design For Mobile Interfaces: A New Smashing Book By Steven Hoober
Mobile and touch are now the standard way people interact with computing devices, yet much of the guidance designers rely on is based on outdated myths, assumptions, and bias. Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces, a new 400-page book from Steven Hoober, addresses this gap by presenting evidence-based research on how people actually use portable touchscreens. The book is shipping starting in mid-January 2022.
Drawing on over two decades of experience designing for phones, tablets, kiosks, and computers, Hoober shares research on hardware, human behavior, interactions, and real-world environments. The book is packed with practical tips, guidelines, tricks, and heuristics that can be applied immediately to create more human-centered mobile interfaces.
What The Book Covers
Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces is organized into 13 chapters that explore how people hold, touch, and read their devices. Key topics include:
- The history of touch input and its continuing influence on traditional computing platforms.
- How touch technology intersects with human behavior and affects design decisions.
- Real-world observational research on how people hold and touch phones and tablets, which debunks several widely accepted but incorrect assumptions.
- Why people favor the center of the screen for both reading and touching, contrary to popular belief.
- How users adapt their touch for different actions such as tapping and scrolling, and how designs can account for finger obstruction.
- Strategies for handling imprecision and probability, including how to prevent mistakes and avoid catastrophic outcomes from mistaken taps.
- Ways to anticipate problems arising from the unpredictable environments in which mobile devices are used.
- Designing interactive elements that attract the eye, afford action, and inspire user confidence.
- Information design principles that leverage how human vision actually works.
- Practical evaluation of common page elements—menus, lists, floating bars, and tabs—within a center-out design philosophy.
The book also addresses how standards and assumptions from earlier eras are often based on technological constraints that no longer apply, making them unreliable for today's touchscreen design challenges.
Who Should Read It
This book is aimed at digital-first designers working on mobile or touchscreen products, providing evidence-based, actionable data to justify design decisions. It also offers a clear path for those transitioning from desktop to mobile design. Additionally, product managers, analysts, developers, and engineers on mobile product teams will benefit from insights into planning features, writing better user stories, and understanding how the work environment has evolved from predictable cubicles to devices being used anywhere and anytime.
The eBook edition is available immediately in DRM-free PDF, ePUB, and Kindle formats, and is included with a Smashing Membership. Pricing options are as follows:
Print + eBook
$44.00 — Quality hardcover with free worldwide shipping and a 100-day money-back guarantee.
eBook
$19.00 — DRM-free, available in ePUB, Kindle, and PDF formats.
400 pages. Written by Steven Hoober. Cover design by Espen Brunborg. Shipping starting in mid-January 2022.
