Advice for iPhone App Design

Question

I am developing an app and I would like some design advice.

Brief: what I want to do

I am creating a TV guide app where I want to show the users three things only: what's playing now, next and later. Furthermore, users should be able to select from a list of channels what channels they would like to follow.

My Design Solution

Now I was thinking of creating a three-tabs tab bar which has Now, Next and later. Each tab would contain a Table View that lists the channels that the user had selected to follow. I want to provide the users with an Edit button at the top of the table view so that a user is able to add/modify/sort/delete the channels.

The Problem

I believe it would be quite confusing for users to edit a table in the "Next" tab, and then find out that the channels were also edited for the "Now" tab. Am I right on that?

Any suggestions are highly appreciated.

Thank you,

Answer 1

I think favourite channels could be a separate setting, i.e. tabs followed by settings, would allow user to see that favourite channels is a generic app wide context.

Answer 2

Makes sense. You should probably put channel editing in it's own settings view or modal view though. If users can edit channels on the "playing now" screen and that affects other tabs, Apple is likely to reject that on the App Store as it could be confusing, and kind of goes against their recommended use of the Tab Bar. If you put the editing of channels in a separate location, it's clear that it isn't specific to the tab they are looking at.

Answer 3

Instead of displaying the list of channels in three separate tabs, why not just display them once on a main view? Then when a user touches a channel, push to a new view that displays the Now, Next and Later information. This should simplify the layout and make it easier for the user to navigate and control what's going on

Answer 4

I don't think it's confusing. i mean if you don't like a channel - you also don't like it now, next or later, right?