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I'm working on a iPad project with a linear process. At the moment I have a 'link' style navigation sat at the top in the 'navigation bar'. I've been doing some early test and the verdict is inconclusive.

Screen shots removed due to client concerns

Any Ideas for an alliterative navigation?

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Can you include details on the purpose of your app? Going through a 20-step wizard type process would likely yield different results then a 5-step setup process. – Evil Closet Monkey Oct 15 '12 at 14:46
Its a 5 step process to customise a financial product. I can't really elaborate much more for legal reasons. – sobox studio Oct 15 '12 at 15:30
Either could work, but generally vertical navigation gives you much more room for text and an opportunity for more complex hierarchy. – Ben Brocka♦ Oct 15 '12 at 15:35
I've added the second page to illustrate how different the pages are. – sobox studio Oct 15 '12 at 15:40
Can you tell us a bit more about what you perceive is the problem with the design you are showing here? I must say that I rather like it. However, it also seems that your designs are aimed at an iPad in landscape mode only. How about portrait mode? Do you have a different layout for that? – André Oct 17 '12 at 12:53
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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

As you are designing the application for the iPad I thought it would be helpful to take a look at the some "IOS Human Interface Guidelines" from Apple.

1.-Minimize the Effort Required for User Input

"Inputting information takes time and attention, whether people tap controls or use the keyboard. If your application requires a lot of user input before anything useful happens, that input slows people down and can discourage them from using your app."

2.- De-emphasize Settings

"Avoid including settings in your application if you can. Users cannot open the Settings application without first closing your application, and you don’t want to encourage this action. When you design your application to function the way most of your users expect, you decrease the need for settings."

Lets say its not very recommended to build an app for iPad with a 5 step wizard. Let the users "play" first with your app with some default settings, and then if they want to change the options laters they can do it but not with a 5 step wizard...

A question, have you ever seen a 5 step wizard on any iPad app?

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It seems you think the whole application displayed is some kind of settings system. I understood it differently. I gathered it is the application: you are basically configuring a financial product. I don't see any settings in the mockups displayed so far. – André Oct 17 '12 at 14:54
I can see in the first mockup "SET A GOAL" which is definetely a setting. Apple is really clear about this in their Guidelines, let the people play first with your application and then if they want to configure something is ok, but for sure never with a 5 step wizard which btw Id never seen before in any iPad app ... – Vistol Oct 17 '12 at 15:58
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My client is happy to proceed with a 'chain link' navigation. I really appreciate the advice. Thank you. However I would still like to keep this discussion going to try and find the a new intuitive way to guide a user through a linear process. So with that in mind I'm going to rephrase the question and leave it unanswered for the time being. Any Thoughts? – sobox studio Oct 17 '12 at 16:48
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You could visualize the process more by having each process step labeled in the center making it very clear for the user what is expected. On screen 1 you see all the numbered steps with big heading text. Clicking step 1 folds up the first step (screen 2), without hiding all the subsequent steps totally. Clicking outside the box will make the screen 1 appear. One option is to add previous and next buttons at the top – making it easier for the user stepping through the workflow. When step 1 is completed (filled in) mark the box on screen one with an accent color making it easier for the user to know that this step is completed.

mockup

download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups

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This is very similar to how the navigation is currently. I'll edit my question and add some more screens. – sobox studio Oct 17 '12 at 10:10

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