User Interface Design on Mobile Devices: Use Available Screen Space

In this blog post inspired by usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s newsletter I shall talk about the importance of using screen real estate when creating user interface designs for mobile devices. The user interface design arguments presented here  also apply (in various degrees) to desktops but for the purpose of this blog post I shall focus more on UI design for mobile devices.  The basis for the newsletter was an 8 year old study that found websites used only 40% of the user interface design on navigation and content of interest. Despite monitors increasing in resolution, size, and cheapness a number of user interface designers still don’t take advantage of the extra screen space. An example of this is how certain websites  open important features in tiny pop-ups that necessitate scrolling and generally add noise to the user interface design.

To provide concrete UI design examples, the report gives  the example of the ABC News iPad app. The user interface design of the ABC News app’s default home screen features a globe. At first the globe is interesting because users can spin the “world” to see what stories are making the world go round (excuse the pun). In the long run it becomes annoying as the user interface design means only one story is visible at one time. Users turn to the alternate home screen user interface design as soon as they find out how to. In short, the best way for UI designers to not waste screen space is by creating user interface designs with higher information density. This approach to UI design increases the chances of users seeing the content they want and thereby scrolling around less. However, care must also be taken to not cram the user interface design with too much information that it becomes overwhelming.