Smart Phone UX Design - Limiting Factors

With the smart phone in your pocket you can say that you have the world in your pocket. This is because of the features of the smart phones that are available in the market. Besides this, the features can be added to the current features of the smart by downloading and installing the applications. Getting the features from the desk top computer or lap top on to the smart phone is not as it seems to be. Come of the prominent limiting factors that apply to the UX design in the smart phones are as follows.

•Screen Size:
It is obvious that the size of the smart phone screen is very small in comparison to the screen of the lap tops or desk top PCs. When designing an application for the smart phone the designer has to take care that all the elements presented on the conventional screens should also be exhibited on the screen of the smart phone. Designing for smart phones is not just reduction of the large screen layout. The use of small screen size needs to be optimized. The designer needs to carefully select the most important elements and icons to be placed on the screen. Usually the buttons to be tapped are placed in the lower portions of the screen.

•Disappearance of the Mouse:
Many designers may have experienced how uncomfortable it is when the mouse does not work. In the case of smart phones the applications do not have the utility of the mouse. This implies that the designer has to resort or ways of accessing the content and elements of the application. This has prompted the designers to develop user interfaces that work on touch of the fingers. Besides using the finger tips as joy stick, the fingers can be used for functions like swipe to scroll and pinch to zoom.

•Technical Limitations:
The invention of the smart phone in comparison to other electronic and telecommunication devices is quite latest. The technology is going to evolving to enhance the capabilities of the smart phones. Besides screen size some technical limitations also apply to the UX design of the smart phone applications. The inbuilt memory, memory size support, the extent to which the memory can be expanded, the capability of the processor and the compatibility of the operating system and the platform of the smart phone are crucial technical limitations that need to be considered for application design.

•Uploading and Downloading of Data:
As the internet gets more and more commercialized, the service providers are hardly offering any unlimited plans. The transfer of data is comparatively quicker than before but this depends on the size of the data. Besides this every byte that is uploaded, downloaded and transferred is being billed. This implies that the size of the data to be transferred should be minimized.

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