Modern mobile devices with touchscreen often have a seemingly elaborate UI design, which is also easy to use. I really do love that UX designers continually think about the various user scenarios, the operating system, and the usability of the app. If a user holds their device with only one hand, this can have a dramatic difference on the user interface design. For this purpose difficult interactions must be tested in the interface design. Viewing a picture in the iPhone app can be generated with a top to bottom swipe interaction – regarding that a lot of people use Facebook while walking this can be very helpful. Thinking about how the user is likely to use the app is very helpful while conceptualizing the interface design. A lot of devices offer screen orientation that means the app can be displayed in portrait or in the landscape view. Often the interface design is programmed to react to the way the user is holding the device. For example: Turning the smartphone while watching a video the screen will automatically change its orientation. This can be very helpful. On the other hand be careful with this feature.
Nothing can be more annoying than when the screen orientation changes without the user’s request. This gets especially important when the user is lying down. The UI responds to the gravitation, but while having one’s head on a pillow, the orientation shouldn’t depend on that. This is why it is so important to give the user a quick and easy option to disable the screen orientation change. When you include such a function in your interface design, you’ll see a lot more users will be satisfied. In interface design the usability is the most important and to gain good usability it’s always necessary to think about how and in which situation the user is going to need the app’s functionality.
