For the HTC One to make any “sense” at all, it has to have a dedicated team of designers ensuring that its version of the Android interface is easy to use. Unlike some of its competitors, HTC has managed to make its Sense UI one of the more attractive, user friendly Android skins out there, the man who helped ensure all that is Drew Bamford.
Bamford was instrumental in the creation of the interface we know as HTC’s Sense. He’s designed the software for a variety of HTC’s flagship devices, including the Evo 4G E One series. Bamford now serves as the Corporate Vice esident of HTC Creative bs had plenty to say on the company’s focus on software design whether BlinkFeed will ever be its own stalone application.
: th all this talk about Android revamping its design, we’re curious: what did it take to revamp Sense 6? How much research development did HTC put into it?
Bamford: For Sense 6, we touched every pixel in the Sense system, from prominent areas like BlinkFeed the Home screen, to all of the common controls that make up our bespoke suite of apps, like Mail, Music, Camera, Gallery, so on.
The goal was to start with the clean, minimal design that we pioneered in Sense 5 bring a bolder, more expressive more friendly look to Sense. In the process, we redefined carefully crafted all of the colors, layouts, typography, controls that form the foundation of Sense. In addition, we wanted to bring back some of the powerful personalization that HTC has been famous for since the debut of Sense, so we made all of our new controls theme-able. Our customers can now express their own personal style by choosing a color palette to assign to the app categories across the system.
HTC’s software design development team spans 4 locations over 1,000 designers engineers. The team worked tirelessly between the releases to make all of the new design functionality in Sense 6 happen.
: The One (M8) has been out since late h. at’s the response been like about Sense? Has there been any feedback that you’re taking into consideration for a future update?
Bamford: The response to Sense 6 has been overwhelmingly positive. Our customers really appreciate new features like instant access to content with Motion unch the Dot View case, photos with professional-looking bokeh, in addition to the bold new visual language. are always listening closely to customer feedback, plan to address some of the feedback directly in our next big release.
: I know BlinkFeed is a integral part of Sense. Are there any plans to branch it out into its own stalone app for other phones?
Bamford: ’ve heard from a lot of HTC customers that they love the way BlinkFeed brings the news social content that’s important to them right onto their home screen. ’re working on more ways to fundamentally improve the smartphone home experience can’t wait to make our new ideas available to more people in our next major release.
: How long have you been an Android user?
Bamford: HTC built the first Android phone ever, the HTC Dream (called the T-Mobile G1 in the United States), I was a user from day one. From the moment we got our first internal builds of Android in 2007, myself the rest of the HTC UX team were dreaming up ways to improve upon the core experiences. Our first release was HTC Sense 1.0 on the HTC Hero in 2009.
: at phone are you sporting these days why?
Bamford: I’m currently carrying the HTC One (M8) because I love the finely crafted industrial design, I can’t live without BlinkFeed my Dot View case!
: at is one app you just can’t live without?
Bamford: Of course I’m biased, but I love snacking on BlinkFeed content whenever I have a few spare moments during the day. Before BlinkFeed, I always had to decide whether to launch a news app, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever. Now I just hit the Home button start scrolling.
