HTC revamped its Sense UI after learning that most smartphone owners rarely use widgets and barely bother to customise their homescreens after the first month of tweaking.
The Taiwanese company launched version 5 of its popular Sense UI last month, alongside the stunning HTC One handset, which offered a fresh new feel for the first time in a number of years.
In a blog post entitled 'Redefining HTC Sense' the company's Assistant Vice President of User Experience Drew Bamford said the company listened to customer feedback and became 'students of human behavior,' when preparing the new version.
According to Bamford, the findings showed many users do no differentiate between apps and widgets and, beyond live items like the Weather, Clock and Music, widgets are employed by less than 10 per cent of users.
Homescreens remain largely untouched
Bamford also said that after the first month of perfecting and tweaking, 80 per cent of folks do not continue to customise their homescreen layout.
The findings allowed the company to re-envision the information presented on the phone's landing page, which brought about the idea for the BlinkFeed interface, which presents a host of continually updating information from social networks and news feeds, similar to the Flipboard digital magazine application.
Bamford wrote: "The goal of creating a user experience that supports how most of you consume information, led us to BlinkFeed.
"Now, every time you power on your new HTC One you'll see fresh content – whether it is from your friends, your social feeds, or our premier content partners – that is uniquely relevant to you."
