Yoojin Hong, executive vice president and head of user eXperience for the mobile experience business at Samsung, spoke about the “design philosophy” for foldables following the release last month of the Galaxy Z Flip4 and Z Fold4.
In an interview posted on Samsung’s website, Hong said the design philosophy for foldables “revolves around two foundations.”
The first is creating a user experience design “that is new yet familiar.”
“Foldables offer consumers a new form factor, which delivers a variety of different and innovative benefits,” said Hong. “However, while the user experience is new, it shouldn’t be unfamiliar — there should not be a steep learning curve.
“For foldables, we design with the idea that the UI should be almost invisible. It should be so intuitive that users are instantly familiar and can navigate with ease.”
The second foundation, says Hong, is to keep in mind “that foldables are tools that help users create.”
“Smartphones have evolved from literal phones to devices that can unlock creativity through photography, art, gaming and more. We want to ensure our UX enhances these experiences.”
Hong also spoke about the inspiration for Samsung’s foldable tech, which Hong said was based on trying to resolve “two seemingly opposing asks,” - the demand for larger screens and pocket-sized and portable devices.
Hong said “While this was a huge undertaking in itself, developing folding screen technology was only the beginning. Once we had these new form factors, we realized that designing UX for a foldable was different from a traditional smartphone.
“We had to rethink the smartphone experience entirely. We also discovered, over time, that these new form factors had the potential to change people’s relationships with their phones. Changes in form factor also lead to new life patterns, and not just for advanced users, but for everyday users. Foldables met evolving user needs in surprising ways.”
Finally, Hong spoke about Samsung’s close collaboration with major tech companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft in the development of its foldables.
“From the beginning, we worked closely with Google to fulfill our foldable vision, even collaborating at the code level to modify Android to meet the needs of foldable devices,” said Hong.
Hong added: “Thanks to our partnership with Meta, FlexCam is optimized for the most popular social platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook.”