Designers can no longer plan on the singular, glassy, feel of a screen and must consider adding textures – both visual and physical – into their design works. Although this technology will create an additional need for tactile features, it will also increase the freedom allowed in other visual elements of design as the weight of ease-of-use shifts from mainly visual feedback to touch feedback. Imagine a smartphone where you can actually feel the difference between the “A” and “S” keys! This change could allow you, the designer, to focus your attention on other elements of the design – and allow the user to focus their visual energies elsewhere. Noticed any other 2015 mobile trends? Add your observations in the comments below. Mike Kirby is a top mobile designer from our 99designs community.
He is featured in two previous blog posts on the Creative Edge: “MikeKirby finds his niche in app icon design” and “How I quit my day job and designed a top-tier mobile game“. Follow him on Twitter like Kirby and check out his 99designs profile here. Header image via Google CardboardThese APIs, with a wide array of customizable vibrations, give a different feel for different button presses – such as rapid pulsing vibrations for machine guns or a single, powerful vibration for when you are hit. Although only Android currently allows for this level of API access to the phone’s vibration settings, Apple is expected to open the special leads same options at some point in the future. That’s not to mention the obvious implications for mobile gaming, such as seeing around corners by actually looking around with your device.
This innovation will bring a much greater sense of immersion and open new avenues for experiments with gameplay mechanics. Gone are the days in which the edges of the phone are the edges of your creative canvas. It’s time for designers to think beyond the frame and consider the larger virtual world that your user will be immersed in technology uses multiple cameras within the device to track the user’s face and then adjusts the position of content, layered at varying depths, according to the movement of the user’s head. This creates the illusion that you are no longer simply looking at a flat screen, but rather looking through a window.