Cross-Device Experience Design

For cross-device app development, you are advised to incorporate considerations for multi-device adaptation early in the product design phase. Through unified planning, we can achieve consistent cross-device feature layout and user experience.

As terminal device forms become increasingly diversified, during the app design, you should ensure that a UI can adapt to different screen sizes, screen orientations, and device types. In addition, the multi-device experience continuity needs to be maintained, the multi-device independent design needs to be improved, and the workload and maintenance costs of developers need to be reduced as much as possible. HarmonyOS provides the multi-device-oriented design guide, allowing designers to use a scientific method to minimize the design workload and ensure design consistency. In addition, HarmonyOS provides corresponding technical capabilities to help developers quickly design cross-device apps.

The following summarizes design methods based on users' historical interaction habits across multiple devices in various usage scenarios, including:

• Basic requirements for cross-device app design: Failing to meet these requirements will significantly impact user experience.
• Responsive layout: The responsive layout design paradigm for common UI elements on wide-screen devices is proposed to avoid experience problems caused by simple stretching and zooming.
• Value-added experience: When designing cross-device apps, consider additional experience enhancements to provide value-added experience where appropriate.
• Scenario-based design reference: Design suggestions are provided for typical pages in specific vertical scenarios.

For cross-device apps, differentiation, consistency, flexibility, and compatibility should be incorporated into UX design principles.

For details, see Design Philosophy. For details about the design of specific vertical cases, see Application Design Best Practices.