Interactive Design Tutorials: Similarities and differences between mobile applications and PC applications

Article Description: the interactive difference between mobile application and PC application is discussed.

One) input mode

smartphones and tablets: use gestures such as clicks, slides, contractions, and rotations to simulate direct manipulation of objects on the screen.
PC: Use the keyboard, mouse, and other external devices to indirectly manipulate objects on the screen.

As two different input methods, the use of keyboard, mouse and other devices for input and through the finger touch input has its own advantages and disadvantages. There are also differences in the factors to be considered in the design of different input modes.

Two) screen size

smartphones and tablets: The common screen size is 2.8-10.1 inches.
PC: screen size is usually larger than 13 inches.

Limited to screen size, mobile applications need to be designed with clear operational logic and guidance to help users understand where they are and what to do next, and also to consider the interaction between controls or applications.

Early mobile applications in the design of the login interface, according to the order of operation from top to bottom in the center of the screen in sequence to place the account input box, password input box and login button. The design seems to be fine, but the login button may be blocked by the virtual keyboard when it is actually used, causing the virtual keyboard to be hidden before clicking the login button.

Most mobile applications now avoid the virtual keyboard blocking the login button by adjusting the location of the login button or by pushing the entire login interface up and down.

Unlike when a mobile application starts exclusive to the entire screen, most PC apps appear as Windows on the screen when they are started. When the size of the window can be adjusted, you need to take into account the changes in the window size to the application, according to the actual situation of the product to make an adaptive processing of the contents of the window, or to limit the minimum size of the window.

III) Interference factors

When using mobile application, it is easy to be disturbed by external factors such as surrounding environment and equipment holding posture, but when using PC, the biggest interference often comes from the interaction of application and application.

Iv. interaction between mobile applications and PC application interaction methods

The difference between platform and terminal brings the difference of interactive way, and the reference and learning between interactive ways will prompt the designer to reflect on the rationality of some interactive ways that are existing and seem to be taken for granted, thus further improve the experience of product usage.

The efficiency of selecting text through finger touch is much lower than using mouse to select text, many mobile applications will add a purge button on the right side of the input box after user input, and this design is used by more and more web and PC applications.