Gestures

Instead of "poking" UI components, users interact with content on the screen using gestures. Avoid cluttering the screen with UI components and design your application to use the available gestures. For example, let users zoom into a picture with the spread gesture instead of tapping a button to incrementally zoom in.

Bezel gestures

BlackBerry 10 smartphones support gestures from the device bezel (the frame around the display area of the screen). You don't need to implement these gestures in your app. They are provided automatically.

Wake up the device
Display notifications
Display the BlackBerry Hub
Minimize applications
This image shows the gesture to wake up the device.
This image shows the gesture to display notifications.
This image shows the gesture to display the BlackBerry Hub.
This image shows the gesture to minimize applications.
Display a virtual keyboard
Display an application menu
This image shows the gesture to display the keyboard.
This image shows the gesture to open an application menu.

Content gestures

If they apply to your app, you can use the following gestures to let users directly manipulate content.

Scroll
Scroll between two items
Select one item
Select multiple items
This image shows the gesture to scroll through a list.
This image shows the gesture to move between two items.
This image shows the gesture to select one item.
This image shows the gesture to select multiple items.
Peek
Open an action menu
Zoom in
Zoom out
This image shows the gesture to view content in the previous level of the application hierarchy.
This image shows the gesture to open an action menu.
This image shows the gesture to zoom in.
This image shows the gesture to zoom out.
Move an item from one place to another
Progress through a file
This image shows the gesture to move an item from one place to another.
This image shows the gesture to progress through a file.

Best practice

If users select a few items at once and try to perform an action that can't be done on all of them (for example, because some are locked), do it on the items you can. Then display a toast to say why it wasn't done on some items.