How Samsung can improve navigation gestures on One UI

Samsung revealed its new One UI skin over Android Pie at the Samsung Developer Conference late last year and has completely revamped the UI with the One UI update.

One UI comes along with the Full-screen gestures which allow you to navigate around the system without having to use the navigation bar which takes up part of the screen.

Using gesture navigation is also a more intuitive method to navigate rather than having to tap buttons or press hardware keys, which thankfully have become a thing of the past.

However, the navigation gestures on One UI aren’t perfect and there’s a lot that could be improved upon by Samsung. So let’s take a look at some of the things that could be improved upon with the navigation gestures on One UI.

Improved animations

One of the main reasons why the gesture navigation on the latest iOS devices looks so good is due to the animations. The visual effect that comes in to play when closing an app or going to the homescreen or even switching apps is just buttery smooth.

However, with Samsungs One UI gestures there are almost no animations at all and apart from bringing up the recents menu, there isn’t any animation at all for going back to the homescreen or using the back gesture.

Simply put, the Full-screen gestures are bland on One UI and Samsung should consider making things more visually appealing with a future update.

Gesture to quick switch apps

Since there’s no navigation bar now, with the Full-screen gestures on One UI there’s currently no way to switch apps quickly. Users were previously able to simply tap on the recents key twice to switch between the recently opened applications.

However, by enabling the Full-screen gesture feature on One UI, users can no longer quick switch between the recently opened apps which is kind of a let down since quick switch is a basic feature.

Adding the gestures towards the right and left edges of the screen to quick switch between opened applications would be a really cool feature and those who have installed the Fluid Navigation Gestures application would know how convenient the feature really is.

It isn’t necessary for Samsung to add the quick switch gestures towards the sides since they could also come up with their own method of quick switching apps using gestures.

App shortcuts

Samsung should go one step further than other OEMs and implement app shortcuts with the Full-screen gestures feature. Having support for app shortcuts with the navigation gesture feature would be really useful.

This would allow users to quickly launch their favorite application with a quick gesture. While Samsung does offer the ‘Edge panel’ feature for users to quickly access applications, it would be great if Samsung introduced the ability to access your favorite applications via the Full-screen gestures feature in One UI.


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Swipe and hold customizability

As of now, users can only launch the Google Assistant by swiping up from the bottom center of the screen to launch Google Assistant but it would be really cool if we could customize the actions for the swipe and hold feature.

Rather than simply launching the Google Assistant, we could have the option for it to launch the Camera app or any other application of our choice.

Samsung is widely known for the number of features it offers with their devices and this is one feature that we hope we get with future updates to One UI.

These are the four major changes and improvements Samsung should consider making with the navigation gestures on One UI. While we do understand that Samsung might not give the users an option to add app shortcuts it’s still worth hoping for.

Nonetheless, even if the company decides to stick with the current features itself, we do hope some improvements are made especially by adding smoother and better animations while using the Full-screen gestures feature in One UI.

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Posted by
Dwayne

Used to be a Windows Phone fan until I got my first Android Phone. Never looked back since. When I'm not writing, I'm gaming. Email: dwayne@theandroidsoul.com