How many reports options to present to the user of an iPhone app?

Question

I have created a Mood tracking app for iPhone, and the user can keep track of the user's moods and (optionally) take pictures to associate with moods.

I've used a similar app for a few months and was dissatisfied with the ways that app sorted and filtered photos, and I'm trying to do better.

I'm interested in knowing - how many "pre-built" reports would make the users happy, without leaving them overwhelmed?

In my case, I have 1 query that is absolutely required - all photos by date. By itself, showing only one option does not look good, and I can implement additional queries.

A side question : Do I need to repeat the word "photos" for each row of the table? Or is the "View Photos" header alone enough?

Answer 1

How many reports options to present to the user of an iPhone app?

The answer is simple: provide enough options to fulfill user's need. That leads to question: What does a user want to achieve by viewing the pictures? Is it:

a) See pictures relevant to her mood

b) See pictures that could change her mood

c) Something else actually?

The huge part of user experience is made of interaction. There are too few details in your question in order to be able to answer it precisely, but you can already answer some questions:

• Do you need the defaults for easy start or do you plan making such list static?

• Would the users use all the filters or would they have preferred, mostly used ones?

• Do a user care about what other users think? Would she like to see "popular", "hot" or "top rated" photos?

Other than that would be usability approach. User usually feels "overwhelmed" when a list is large and is not consistent with her thinking, mind model. When a list is large but it's conceptual model is useful and understandable then she feels uncomfortable at most. She may not even notice such discomfort if such a list is rarely used.