We don’t need to see your mockup at that angle.
Is this really the best way to showcase your designs?
Oh, the joys of generating product mockups. It really is a satisfying final step after spending days, weeks, or even months creating a pixel-perfect design. There’s something gratifying about viewing your work in a device mockup. It lends a sense of finality and accomplishment, even if you know your product will never make it into the hands of a single end user.
Today I set out to create device mockups of a few newly-designed screens, and was taken aback by the number of variations produced by my generator of choice. No disrespect to MockUPhone. They’re giving people what they want; meeting a (somewhat strange) demand in the mobile UI/UX design community. The Behances and Dribbbles of the internet have been flooded lately with mobile app design mockups presented as a single screenshot in a device at an unnatural angle.
It’s understandable to show a few zoomed-in shots to highlight design details viewers may otherwise overlook. However, the majority of these images are presented by themselves, with little to no descriptive text or additional images.
Full disclosure: I’m extremely near-sighted. I’m on week three of waiting for my ultra-thin high-index lenses to return from Thailand. But I can’t possibly be the only one who’s scratched their head (or tilted it) while viewing a mockup at an angle most users will never hold their device when using your app. Is this really the best way to showcase your designs? How does it encourage fellow designers to adequately critique your work and provide feedback? How does it allow future employers to assess your skills?
Present your designs in full, with confidence. If it’s proprietary, anonymize or password-protect it. At the very least, consider providing a click-through to front-facing portrait or landscape images. Put as much time into showcasing your work as you did creating it.
