Android UX
January 18th, 2012
I just bought a HTC Sensation XL phone, running Android 3.2 (Ice Cream Sandwich). I believe I got those details right. The world of Android has always confused me. With so many manufacturers producing a range of phones, each interface with it’s own flavour, you have to forgive me for haven given up in the early days.
I have had the HTC Sensation for about 8 hours now, and some things have impressed me.
I like the large screen. It’s 2.5 cms longer and 1 cm wider than the iPhone 4s. In terms of pixel/resolutions, I don’t know off the top of my head but wouldn’t be too difficult to find out.
The hardwired buttons are okay, not as confusing as I was expecting it to be. Having these dedicated buttons for common actions (home, menu, back, search) means there is more screen space for displaying content. It also removes the need to tap in/out of full screen view used for many games and entertainment apps.
However, moving from the screen to the fixed button off screen does not feel a little more disconnected than a fully within-screen experience.
The camera is good, and has built in effects. I like that the camera lens is position away from the edges where I typically hold my phone. The number of times I have taken photos on my iPhone with a corner obstructed by my clumsy finger!
The screen and image quality is lovely, as good as iPhone 4. No complaints there.
I do also like being able to dismiss notifications easily. One thing that annoys me about the iPhone is the little red symbol indicating error or number of new messages, and it won’t go away until you go into the app. On the Android there is a notification centre which shows notifications from all applications, and you can clear them all with one tap.
These are all small improvements on the iPhone experience, however there are two things that frustrate me about the Android.
Firstly, the navigation is confusing. After 8 hours I am just getting accustomed to the idea of having a bunch of ‘shortcut screens’ that only show a few of your apps. The rest of the apps are hidden away, and is accessed from the ‘All Apps’ button on the bottom left of the screen. It took me a while to figure out how to remove, add and rearrange widgets on those shortcut screens. It just isn’t as clear and straightforward as Apple’s press-and-hold technique.
That’s not my hand by the way. But it does feel quite large in the hand, but not uncomfortably so.
The thing that I truly dislike about the Android interface is how to delete apps. On the iPhone it takes 2 actions: press-hold (entering rearrange/delete mode), then tap on the app to delete it. There is a confirmation message. But 3 actions. That’s all it takes. On the Android it taakes 6 taps to delete the app, and another tap to confirm. Too many. It was difficult to figure out as well. As a new user I am trying out lots of apps, and half of them I end up deleting. I would say deleting apps is a medium priority task, and should be easier and simpler to carry out.
It took me a little while to figure out how to use apps when the screen is locked. Dragging an icon to the ring to activate was not intuitive, however after a few errors I now think it’s pretty neat. I can call, mail, camera and message from the locked screen with one drag action. With the iPhone there is the drag to unlock, then tap to enter the app. For me, especially to use the camera to capture an urgent moment, this is a very smart feature.
The HTC Sensation sleep/lock button feels a little too shallow, not enough indentation when I press it. Otherwise, I am already missing iPhone’s silent button, and I haven’t yet had to use that feature yet.
I haven’t figured out yet how to change the ring and message tones.
Otherwise, still enjoying my shiny new toy.
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