A reimagination of an easier-to-use, faster and more accessible BlackBerry 10 Hub.

The Hub underpins the BlackBerry 10 OS, so the most logical gesture to open it is a long swipe up from the base of the phone. This is similar to, but less confusing than, the original gesture (swipe up and to the right in one motion to reveal the hub panel beneath the wallpaper) as it is always accessible and independent of which homescreen or application the user is on, rather than being simultaneously to the left of all the homescreens (one way of accessing it) and beneath them (another way of accessing it).

The Hub now opens by default onto a view of unread notifications rather than simply presenting unread counts, but not the notifications themselves, as the current Hub does while being opened. This allows the user to see what they have missed rather than a timeline of past activity, which is still accessible via the menu.

 

Tap to interact, slide to dismiss. All notifications are dealt with in this way, and some could make use of more than one action.

Instead of blending the two navigation paradigms of the "hamburger" icon and static navigation tabs on the bottom as the current OS does, this replaces the sliding pane with a selector, giving users a clear idea of the function of the first tab. Clicking the tab (which is, as in the current version, differentiated by a different colour and a blue indicator along its upper edge, although I have removed the drop shadows and granular textures and replaced them with solid grey tones) causes the pane to slide out and present the different views.

The current Hub on the left (shown during opening to display relative position) and my redesign on the right. Full-res image at http://d.pr/i/Ng1h.