HTC Sense 5 and BlinkFeed: Why HTC Said Widgets Are Boring

Why HTC rethought Sense

HTC’s Assistant Vice President of User Experience wrote on the company blog about the fifth version of Sense. Sense was seen as one of the few manufacturer interfaces some users preferred over stock Android. The One launched with Sense 5, and the company promised the update for the One X and One S too. HTC said it wanted a fresh look at the overall customer experience and carried out research first.

The three findings

1. Apps and widgets blur together

Most people do not differentiate between the two. Since Android 4.1 allowed widgets to be resized, a widget stretched across the screen looks much like the app. The post noted that HTC had offered resizing in its first version of Sense, well before Jelly Bean.

2. People do not use widgets

Weather, clock and music were the most popular, and fewer than 10% of customers used any others. The writer agreed from experience, finding widgets that do not resemble an app mostly useless.

3. Home screens stay the same

After the first month, about 80% of people no longer change their home screens. The writer had kept nearly the same layout for two years, built around the most-used apps.

BlinkFeed

BlinkFeed takes one home screen, a swipe away from the usual layout. It collects news and media you choose in a Flipboard-style set of tiles, with content from friends, social feeds and HTC’s partners. The writer liked the idea if the partner list grows. A possible future direction was apps taking over full home screens instead of widgets, which the writer would like to see from Twitter and Google+. A review of the One was promised.