Design for Better — Lock Screen Edit
“Design for Better” is a series that addresses overlooked issues through fresh design approaches that could help millions of people.
The problem
Currently, when you unlock your phone on the lock screen, you can enter edit mode with a long press. However, this interaction is too quick and inconsistent with other iOS patterns. For example, you don’t long press the home screen to change wallpaper, nor do you long press the control center to modify its layout. This interaction pattern does match the Apple Watch, where the watch face uses the same long press to edit feature. However, the Apple Watch faces the same issue of users accidentally triggering edit mode. This inconsistency creates unwanted interruptions when users accidentally trigger edit mode, which can lead to confusion rather than helping.
The hypothesis
The ability to turn it off so you don’t accidentally go into edit mode.
What we have now
Right now both on iOS and watchOS the interaction to edit the lock screen on iOS or the main watch face on the Watch is a long press on the screen.
The design — Lock screen edit
A simple solution to prevent accidental triggering would be adding a toggle in Settings to disable this interaction. Users would then have control over whether they can access the edit view through long-press. For optimal user experience, this toggle should be off by default.
If you like this design proposal, please share your feedback. This is part of a broader initiative focused on spam prevention, with more improvements to be shared soon.
