Taiwanese-based mobile phone maker HTC announced today the release of its third Android-powered mobile phone, the HTC Hero, and also unveiled to the world its newest user interface that shipped with the device, the HTC Sense. According to the company, the new UI is meant to offer a simpler and easier phone navigation, while putting people at the center.

The new user interface has been developed based on the company's drive to offer users an enhanced mobile experience, and it “revolves around three fundamental principles that were designed by quietly listening and observing how people live and communicate.” The three principles that Sense is based upon are Make It Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected, and the company also stated that all future mobile phones it would release on the market, starting with HTC Hero, would include the new Sense UI.

Make It Mine, the first principle behind Sense, makes users feel that the phone has been created by them and for them. Thus, they will be enabled to organize the way they access the people and content in the best fitting way. To be more precise, HTC Sense will allow users to add widgets to push content on the phone, or to set quick access to business-focused information like email or calendar. Moreover, a new profile feature called scenes has been introduced, and users will be able to personalize content around different functions in their lives.

Stay Close is a feature that integrates existing communication channels and applications (calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates) in a single view (something that has been already seen with the company's Inner Circle that came to the market along with the HTC Snap). Sense puts together Facebook status updates, Flickr photos, text messages, emails and call history of a user’s friends into a single view.

Discover the Unexpected is aimed at offering users the possibility to experience moments of joy and delight with their HTC phone. As some of the best moments in life are experienced, not explained, as the mobile phone maker stresses, Sense comes with a series of new perspectives, including an innovative view on content such as emails, photos, Twitter, music, and more others. Since basic things can be very important sometimes, the new UI from the company is meant to offer some of there experiences to HTC phone users.