It is a recognized fact that Samsung has made great strides in the smart phone arena, both in terms of hardware and software. In 2018, it was able to switch from its old interface “TouchWiz”, which caused many people to hate its devices and even caused a bad reputation for the Android system in general due to the weight of the interface and its overcrowding with useless programs to the “One UI” interface, which was a radical shift in the company’s interface and a reason for inspiration for other companies, as we saw in OnePlus, for example.
This shift did not happen overnight, but passed through many stages and versions such as the “Grace UX” interface that was launched in 2016 and then the “Samsung Experience” interface, before finally reaching the desired “One UI” interface.
On a personal level, we were a big fan of that new interface that Samsung introduced, it was a genius idea to build an entire interface to be suitable for one-handed use by increasing the upper space that contains program titles or known programmatically as “Action bar”, this was It is the main idea on which Samsung built its new interface, which gave an aesthetic form to the system and a clear imprint of the company before it was copied by OnePlus at least.
An overview of the One UI 2.5 interface on my S10 lite, which shows how it was designed for one-handed use.
1- How was the One UI interface a successful step that caused a change in users’ perception of Samsung?
It wasn’t all it took to build a successful interface to focus on one-handed users, so why design an entire interface for this when you can activate one-handed mode directly to reduce the screen size? Of course, the company’s only goal of the One UI interface was not to be adaptive to it, yes it was the main reason, but not the only one! Therefore, you may wonder about the reasons that made this interface successful enough that made me switch to their devices after using the raw systems for nearly six years?! This is what we will talk about in the following points:
- Dividing the interface into a visual part and an interactive part and unifying this ratio in all programs:
As we explained earlier, this idea was the nucleus of the design in the One UI interface and the main factor in its success. This simple design added an unusual experience for users and was never a bad experience. Samsung relied on dividing the screen into two parts in different proportions: a visual part that contains data Displayed only, which you do not need to interact with – such as touching it – and made it in the first third of the screen, and another part includes the space that needs user interaction and made it in the remaining two-thirds of the screen to be in the middle and bottom of the interface, which helps to use the interface with one hand.
Those proportions in the division of the interface highlighted an aesthetic appearance that attracted many users and increased the popularity of the interface, so it can be considered the “golden ratio” that was the main reason for the success of the One UI interface.
- Asymmetry of the interface and its liveliness in color:
With the application of the golden ratio that we talked about in the previous point on the system interface completely, Samsung was able to design a similar interface in the same design style in all its programs, which made the design language unified and the general experience of use more than satisfactory. The most important goal of successful interface design is appearance.
- The difficult equation: radical modification of the Android interface while preserving the identity of the system
Samsung is one of the companies that intensively modify the Android interface, however, the company has been able not to modify the way the nucleus of the system decays, so when you use the One UI interface, you will feel that you are still using the Android system despite the interface difference, this is what some other companies have not been able to achieve Like Xiaomi, for example, which is radically modifying the Android system by heart, to the point of reaching a “hybrid” version of the Android system that is difficult to deal with.
- Pay attention to updates and increase the support period for older devices to three years:
We all remember the old Samsung eras when attention to old phone updates was out of its priorities, which was causing the discontent of its users, so all the love was dominating its new phones until it revealed others and forgot it too. Samsung really wanted to improve its policy to the point that it made it admit this shortcoming, and now it updates its phones monthly with security packages in addition to increasing the number of years to support its devices with updates to become three years instead of two, which means that every new phone from Samsung will get three radical updates to the system Android, not to mention the non-stop security updates. Thus, Samsung has overcome one of the most important reasons people avoid it and has become a competition for the Chinese companies Con Plus in supporting its old phones.
- Maintain smooth performance, what Samsung failed to do before!
The main reason for everyone’s aversion to previous Samsung interfaces – especially the “TouchWiz” interface – was the poor performance that these devices offered; With the interface being so heavy that neither the system nor the hardware could handle it, this was a nightmare for previous users and a major reason for discrediting the early Android system; But the company was able to break this curse in the One UI interface, maintaining the smooth performance of the system while continuing to add its own touch to the interface.
One UI 3.0.. New features and supported devices
Samsung has started sending the official update for the third version of its One UI interface – based on the Android version 11 – for the Samsung Galaxy S20 phones. The main changes are as follows.
- Notification window – add transparent blur effect
For some reason, Samsung decided to change the look of the notification window slightly, increasing its transparency and giving it a blurry effect. This design reminds me of the old times of Android when we were adding this same blur and transparency effect using the “Gravity box” program, so we find this design a bit old, but on Anyway, that’s what we’ll find in the One UI 3.0 update.
- Support for floating conversations, “Bubbles API”
Another radical feature that Google introduced in the Android 11 version is the support for fully floating conversations, and although Samsung already had its own means to provide a similar experience previously, it has officially done that new feature in the new update.
- Redesigned volume control window
Samsung has completely redesigned the sound window and moved its place to be next to the volume buttons instead of the top as we saw in version 2.5, the new design of the sound window matches the design of the notification window in terms of transparency and blur effect, which gives an aesthetic touch to the interface and beautiful consistency as Samsung has returned.
- Possibility to add shortcuts in the lock screen
One of the new features that got the One UI 3.0 update is the ability to add shortcuts or cards to the lock screen. The experience can be considered similar to the shortcuts in the iOS version, but in general, you cannot add any shortcut you have on the lock screen (this is not the Android Kitkat version!), but you will choose Very limited number of cards designed specifically to fit on the lock screen, these are:
- Weather
- Music player
- Daily schedule
- Bixby routine
- Summary of your daily usage history.
- Support double click to close the screen
One of the features we have been waiting for a lot to see on Samsung phones has finally become officially supported. Starting with the third version of One UI, you will be able to close the screen by clicking twice, for some reason Samsung was avoiding supporting this feature and only double clicking to open the screen and so it is good to see This simple and functional feature is officially supported.
- The ability to add a private photo or video clip to the communication interface
In order to increase the user’s powers to customize the interface of his phone in the manner that suits him, Samsung has allowed the possibility of setting a special background to be visible in the communication interface, and it is also possible to choose between two different interfaces to display the name and photo of the caller.
