How to save UX for mobile.

Mobile UX has a variety of long-lasting issues we need to address quickly.

These days everyone uses smartphones, which have become rather large computer screens. They come with a wide range of new and innovative apps. We have to try and find solutions that match these apps to large smartphone screens.

That sounds obvious. But. One thing seems stuck in an Older Age. The basic mobile UX principles. We, designers keep designing these fascinating new day-to-day solutions in ‘pocket’ sizes.

And doing so, we keep holding on to what we know and what (we think) our users know.

No new advances are made in mobile UX. Not on a large significant scale at least.

Sidenote: Skeuomorphism, Neumorphism, Glassmorphism are dribbble based UI trends that are not UX and even make UX worse on most occasions. And thus can not be seen as an “advancement” in UX.

Yes, we do create new technologies, but no new advances in personality and what is actually improving the users’ experience on a basic UX level.

The biggest and easiest example of this is the continued use of the basic hamburger menu for important features. Furthermore, we also use the mobile header for other features. Instagram for example uses it now to make a post, share a post, and direct messaging.

This is deadly wrong and bad for user engagement.

Why do we do this? Why do mobile UX designers, including myself, keep using these old basic principles? Because it is easy and it is “What the users know” because “Everyone else does it”.

The hamburger was a quick and easy solution when we needed to put away large quantities of information with limited screen space. And I do believe it still has its rightful place within websites and desktop apps.

(Read more about the origin of the hamburger here)

Back to the observation mentioned above: people have larger and larger and larger phones. Now, it is incredibly difficult to reach those header positions on such large phones while using one hand.

We all know the thumb range in mobile UX, but no one actually seems to take this into account. Apps keep putting important features in the ‘reach’ area of…