Kirigami design question (iOS users, please read)

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Fri, Apr 01, 2016 at 11:00:28PM +0200, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Donnerstag, 31. März 2016 18:05:56 CEST Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> > The feedback was "menus are unusual" and "having the 'back' function in a
> > menu feels like being different just to be different". And in general most
> > iOS users asked for more buttons on the screen, several sending screen
> > shots with example apps (just like Robert did), showing how the top row
> > and bottom row are typicall used for actions.
> 
> The idea has never been to have a drawer as the main way to go back. It just 
> happens that "going back" in Subsurface-mobile usually means going back to the 
> dive list, and the dive list (correctly) also being in the global drawer.
> 
> The drawers are not supposed to be used for very frequent functions, because 
> of course they take longer to execute than buttons which are directly on the 
> screen.

I think we can agree on that.

> The global drawer is similar to a main menu in a desktop application, 
> whereas the context drawer is akin to a right-click menu. A good desktop 
> application doesn't put the most common functions in either of those as the 
> only way to access them, either.

Yes, I think that was understood by most people - and I got the specific
feedback that using Subsurface-mobile felt like someone had tried to hard
to implement that design idea (main menu and context menu) in
Subsurface-mobile, instead of developing a smooth, consistent, mobile user
experience. Given that Subsurface-mobile was developed from scratch as a
mobile UI that hurt a little :-/

> The HIG for the Global Drawer [1] states "It contains an application's main 
> menu, and any functions which are not part of the application's main usecases 
> but are not specific to the current context either.".
> 
> The HIG for the Context Drawer [2] states "Use a Context Drawer if your 
> application has any functions which are only relevant in specific contexts, and 
> which are not central enough to the application's main purpose to put them in 
> the main user interface or in a toolbar.",

Both these statements make sense.

> Our idea for applications for which going back and forth between a list and 
> specific elements of the list is the most common navigation pattern is to use 
> column-based navigation (i.e. swiping to go back to the list). I was told that 
> Subsurface-mobile doesn't use this because for your users, flicking through 
> dives is more common than going back to the list.

Yes, a lot more common.

> The feedback from your iOS users sounds like going back to the list might be 
> more common for them than anticipated, though. In cases where both flicking 
> through items _and_ going back to the list are equally common, of course both 
> need to be easily accessible (i.e, not just from a drawer).

Not sure that it's "more common than anticitpated". It's less common than
switching between dives, but it's still something you will want to do
quite frequently. The first push to release was on Android and there this
is easy because you have the back button. But on iOS you don't. Which is
how we got here :-)

> > So it's not that people "couldn't" use them, the perception I got was that
> > they felt that Subsurface-mobile was less usable because we went out of
> > our way not to have actions on the screen and instead made them use the
> > drawers.
> 
> The Kirigami and Apple Human Interface Guidelines have different underlying 
> assumptions. The Apple HIG are about making all functions as easily available 
> as possible, whereas two of the basic assumptions behind Kirigami [3] are 
> "Phones are more for communication and content consumption than for content 
> creation" and "Space is limited, and content is king."

So I agree on both of those. And constantly get lectured by people of the
iPhone generation that only old people like me think that phones are not
for content creation. There apparently are people who have written books
on phones. People do photo and even video processing on phones. Several
testers told me that they disliked the need to create the Subsurface cloud
account on the desktop version because once we are able to download dives
from dive computers in Subsurface-mobile they expect to never use the
desktop version at all but to do all their logging with the mobile app.

This boggles my mind, I'd rather poke my eye out than write my dive notes
on a phone, but as they say... listen to your users...

> These assumptions are obviously not 100% compatible with those behind the iOS 
> HIG. Furthermore, given that Android is a more important ecosystem for KDE 
> (since it's more "open source friendly", and far more Plasma users have 
> Android then iOS devices), our design is closer to Android's than iOS' (which 
> also lead to your Android testers being - after some initial getting used to 
> the new things - much more positive about Kirigami in Subsurface-mobile than 
> the iOS testers).

This is one thing you notice when living in the US. Here iPhones are
SIGNIFICANTLY more common than Android. On this dive trip I paid attention
to the devices people used. I saw one single Android phone (besides
Linus'). And about two dozen people with iPhones (and two with iPads) on
the boat. Yes, in Europe and especially in Germany Android devices are
significantly more common. In the US they definitely are not. Certainly
not among divers, apparently.

The install base numbers will tell eventually (right now our iOS version
is not in the iTunes store while the Android app is), but my assumption is
that as long as we don't mess things up we'll get a significant share of
iOS users.

> Being close to the iOS HIG was never the goal behind Kirigami, so we won't 
> change things just in order to be closer to them. 
> We do change things if they just don't work well in general, though, which is 
> why I keep trying to find out whether your iOS testers dislike things because 
> they're not used to them, or because they simply don't work well.
> 

I'm not advocating that you get closer in HIG to what iOS imposes. I'm
advocating to get to a point where this becomes easy to use to an iPhone
user.

> > > I admit I had only one iOS-only user in my first user tests, but she was
> > > actually the one who had the least problems with anything in Kirigami.
> > 
> > You know what they say about a sample size of one... :-)
> 
> I know. If I had 50 iOS users happily using Kirigami Components, I'd probably 
> simply ignore the feedback from your 15 users :P

And you should. It might mean that I'd end up either forking Kirigami or
potentially abandon using it. See above. I need to listen to my user base.

Actually, I don't need to do a thing - this is open source, not my day
job. A sentiment that will feel familiar to some KDE people (but not to
many of the people involved in Kirigami for whom this does appear to be
their day job).

> > Can we summarize this as mine is bigger than yours?
> > 
> > Oh wow, where did that come from. I will claim that I am still narked. I
> > did two 22ft dives this afternoon...
> 
> I'm sorry but I _have_ to post this as a fake quote on Google+. Don't worry, I 
> won't make it embarrassing for you.

Sure. I trust you on that one... me and my big mouth... or in this case...
big hands...

(stop laughing, Linus).

> > > Having swipe to go back as an alternative still makes sense for those
> > > users
> > > who don't want to move their thumb all the way to the bottom, but a back
> > > button as an obvious alternative does make sense.
> > 
> > Thank you - I think we can agree on that. And then we can add the pinch
> > zoom thing for Robert :-)
> 
> Having redundant ways to access a function is always good, as long as they are 
> not in conflict with anything else or clutter up the screen (neither of which 
> is the case here).

Yes, having redundant screen actions is silly. That's why I'm hoping that
I can have the "virtual" back button on the screen ONLY on iOS and not on
Android, where there already is a back button. No point in having two.

> > > I will ask Marco to implement the option for additional buttons next to
> > > the
> > > action button.
> > 
> > AWESOME. Thank you.
> 
> I gave my request more weight by reminding Marco that he himself had the idea 
> of a bottom toolbar with up to three buttons at some point ;)

Hehe. Good!

> > I will try to do the port to the latest Kirigami tonight. Let's see how
> > far I get.

I did. And it's making progress. I hope by the end of today I'll be ready
to unleash this on our testers.

> Users complaining about something can, but not necessarily always does mean 
> there is an underlying usability issue. Complaining about something can often 
> be an initial gut reaction.

Completely agree. Remember that I initially still had the top corner
hamburger and kebab menu buttons in Subsurface-mobile. And then as I got
more comforable with the Kirigami HIG abandoned those. It's a dance to
figure out how far you can push a new idea (even a better idea) without
pissing off and pushing away your users.

> That's why observing users is much more valuable than just listening to them. 
> I just wish I had more iOS users to watch while using Subsurface-mobile. The 
> problem is just that I hardly know any. Everyone in my social circles just 
> used Android. Therefore, feedback form iOS users is better than no data about 
> iOS.

See my earlier comments about the US vs Germany. If you were over here,
you'd have no problem finding iOS users.

/D