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Mouse and keyboard are yesterday’s things. It is an era of touch screens where fingers and thumbs are the tools to access smart devices.

Like many of us, one thing you might have experienced using a smartphone – misclick. Almost every individual has been there when they accidentally tap a wrong button. As a result, they might have ended up landing on the wrong page or ordering an unnecessary product. It can happen for two reasons, such as:

The distraction and clumsiness of online users

The UI of a mobile application is not finger-friendly

Regardless of the reason, if you want to start an online business, you need to know that it is not a minor error. It can cause you to lose potential customers because of failure in providing an excellent customer experience. So, what can you do to avoid such situations? The solution is enhancing the touch targets of your app.

What are touch targets?

Touch targets are an essential part of the screen of mobile phones. These are elements responsible for responding to user requests.

Right now, many questions might be popping up in your mind – What makes touch targets user-friendly? Which tool or technology should I resort to for the same?

Don’t worry! Our Xamarin app developers are here to guide you. Below, we have explained how to improve the touch targets of your app with Xamarin.Forms. When you hire Xamarin app development services, your professional must have the necessary experience and skillset.

Pro tips to enhance touch targets of your app

The bigger, the better

Do you know what frustrates online users the most when using a mobile app? Well, it is continuous tapping on their mobile screens with no results. Usually, it happens when a touch target of a particular app is smaller in size. If you want your users to access anything on your app with a single tap, keep your touch targets big enough.

As an app owner, your goal should be to ensure a hassle-free experience for your users. And it does not include fiddling with tapping buttons on your app. For example, if the button on your app is too small, you will never achieve your goals. It means your app might become one of the unsuccessful projects.

If you want to increase the size of the touch target, add “Padding” to the button. However, it will not change the look at all.

Consider factors, form, and audience

Note:* It is best to consider the form, size, factors, and audience before developing the screen. After all, touch targets vary from one screen size to another. For example, if your app has a limited screen space, it is not ideal shrinking the same touch targets. By doing this, everything might fit the screen. But they will not be finger-friendly. Therefore, your Xamarin app development company will revise the layout of your screen to add gestures and voice control.

Note:* It is best to consider the form, size, factors, and audience before developing the screen. After all, touch targets vary from one screen size to another. For example, if your app has a limited screen space, it is not ideal shrinking the same touch targets. By doing this, everything might fit the screen. But they will not be finger-friendly. Therefore, yourXamarin app development company will revise the layout of your screen to add gestures and voice control.

Besides this, the audience is a reason to create touch targets with significant size. Please remember, most users find it challenging to tap smaller touch targets.

Stick to the guidelines

When it comes to the size of touch targets, both Apple and Android have specific guidelines. If you want your Xamarin app to stand out, it is crucial to keep up with the standards.

As per the Human Interface Guidelines by Apple, it is advisable to keep a minimum tappable area to 44pt x 44pt. It will ensure all elements have enough touch targets. On the other hand, the Material Design Guidelines of Android suggest 48pt x 48pt for all controls. If you feel these sizes are inadequate, you can increase them accordingly.

Ensure next level interactions

Thanks to the advancements in technology, you can take your app interactions to another level. For this, you can use the TouchEffectNuGet package by Andrei Misiukevich. It allows you to create views without depending on TapGestureRecognizer. But how does it work?

You can use it to change the look of any control whenever a user initiates touch on the screen. For example, you can translate, rotate, scale, and re-color elements in case of touch events.

Xamarin.Community Toolkit

Since Microsoft is replacing Xamarin.Community Toolkit with .NET MAUI Community Toolkit, stay up-to-date with changes. Xamarin.Community Toolkit ran a set of NuGet packages, which provides a handful of features. Check out what new changes come with .NET MAUI!

In closing

It is essential to design good touch targets for your Xamarin app. If you want to offer an excellent user experience, make sure all elements are well-spaced and large. With this, your users can enjoy finger-friendly taps while meeting their needs. Your potential Xamarin mobile application development provider needs to stay abreast with updates and offer a successful project.

What is React Hook?

Hooks in React are a newly added feature. These make working with React hassle-free because they come with simpler code. As a result, developers can incorporate similar features in React apps at a fast pace. In addition to this, you can use these Hooks to implement state and lifecycle features without writing a class.

useImperativeHandleHook

React uses unidirectional data flow to pass data from parent to child components. Hence, the parent components cannot grab information in the child component. But in some cases, developers might need parent components to fetch data directly from the child components. That is where the useImperativeHandleHook comes into the picture. It can help React developers to make the value, state, or function of child components accessible to the parent components using ref.

But it does not mean the child components will no longer be private. Well, this Hook enables parent components to access properties you decide. To know more about this Hook, the following are some use cases.

It ensures a bidirectional flow of data and logic without using state management libraries like Redux. Such libraries can complicate the process.

You can also use the useImperativeHandleHook to define the state in the parent components. Otherwise, it would cause the parent and child components to re-render with each click of the modal button. Therefore, use useImperativeH and leandforwardRef to store model state.

useDebugValueHook

Unlike useImperativeHandle, useDebugValue Hook boosts the developer’s experience. Both on-site and freelance React developers can use this Hook to log information in React DevTools easily. However, developers can use it, along with a custom Hook.

It is an in-built Hook that developers use to gather more information about the internal logic. Usually, this information is related to a custom Hook inside the React DevTools. Besides this, useDebugValueHook displays additional information that comes with optional formatting. Developers can implement React DevTools as a browser extension or a standalone app.

For example, if you want to create a simple custom Hook, you may return to the first state in DevTools. On the other hand, building a complex custom Hook requires several components. They enable tracking the values that belong to states when debugging. Thus, developers leverage this Hook for displaying values in custom Hooks.

However, this Hook has a fair share of limitations. Given the Rules of Hooks, developers cannot use useDebugValue for conditional and nested data.

useLayoutEffectHook

Another useful React Hook is useLayoutEffect. It works similar to the useEffectHook, which means developers can conduct side effects. These are setting up subscriptions, API calls, and manual DOM manipulations. However, itdoes not work asynchronously like useEffectHook.

React fires useLayoutEffect and useEffectafter performing DOM loading. But the former Hook works synchronously. It means useLayoutEffect is called before the browser displays updates to users. Contrary to this, useEffect is called once the browser displays the updates.

In addition to this, the Hook has several practical use cases. As mentioned already, it fires synchronously after all DOM updates. You can use useLayoutEffect to read and alter the DOM layout. Whether you want to get the scroll position, add animations, or other styles, useLayoutEffect is ideal. You need to be careful using it. After all, your users cannot see anything until you run this Hook to make a DOM update.

In closing

There are many Hooks in React that improve the experience of users and developers. But these React Hooks are the ones underrated, even though they play a crucial role in app development. Of course, these Hooks are not necessary at all projects. With these, developers can overcome common challenges and make their lives easier. When you hire ReactJs developers, they must be familiar with React Hooks to resolve certain edge cases.