At its fifth annual Developer Conference held in San Francisco over the past couple of days, Samsung not only talked about the expansion of Bixby to every possible avenue, unveiled the foldable Infinity Flex display, but also showed off the next iteration of its software experience, dubbed as One UI.
One UI seems to be a more streamlined and clutter-free software experience from Samsung and is primarily geared towards phone with large displays. One UI seeks to address a key problem with the current generation of UX paradigms i.e. not being able to reach elements at the top of large smartphone screens, thus making interactions full of friction.
Instead of adding a ton of new features to the UI, Samsung set out on a mission to fully refresh the interface and simplify the UX. Samsung’s One UI is the culmination of this very vision, gunning for minimalism, and a comfortable one-handed user experience.
This new redesigned UI for Samsung phones brings more rounded icons, bigger quick tiles with improved contrast, and Android Pie-inspired colorful flourishes across the UI, however, the main highlights of the experience are as under:
Natural Interaction
Samsung has totally refreshed its software interface to now make it simpler for users to interact with elements on the screen, without having to stretch their fingers to the top or use their second hand to tap buttons.
All the key buttons and content pieces will now be at the reach of your thumb and this is being termed as the ‘most user-focused smartphone UX’ ever developed by the company.
Focus Blocks
Samsung also highlighted Focus Blocks as another important aspect of the experience as they’re designed to club related things such as settings, photos, and more for stress-free navigation.
Samsung is not looking to hit you with cluttered menu pages, but instead, plans to group them in sections that alleviate the pain of looking around.
Dark Theme
Samsung has taken possibly the most frequently voiced user demand into account, i.e the introduction of system-wide dark theme ‘Night Mode’ across the whole One UI skin. This will obviously make your smartphone easier on the eyes during night time, and saves tons of battery life.
One UI demos, loving the layout structure #SDC18 pic.twitter.com/SYQ5oyVWlM
Joaquim Vergès, Senior Android Engineer at Twitch loves this new interface and so do a lot of users on Reddit, which is good news for Samsung! Some still have their reservations in place though, just like us!
It’s not secret that Samsung is a world leader in smartphone hardware, ruling many categories such as display, memory and cameras. It’s also kept fan favorites such as the 3.5mm audio jack or so far avoided notches on phones.
