Android alpha -833 with experimental mobile components change

[Rick Walsh]

Good morning

On 12 February 2016 at 07:47, Dirk Hohndel <dirk at hohndel.org> wrote:

>
> > On Feb 11, 2016, at 11:34 AM, Dirk Hohndel <dirk at hohndel.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Since many of us were not in love with the ActionButton and the way it
> was used to interact with the application, Marco kindly made an
> experimental version of the mobile components to be able to test a
> different idea with our users. Those of you who have played with the
> Android app, I'd appreciate if you could spend a few moments playing with
> the -832 build.
> >
> > In this version you no longer drag the ActionButton to open the drawers,
> instead there are buttons in the corners to do this (and of course edge
> swipe works as well). Right now both buttons always show and the buttons
> are completely opaque (both of which I think should change), but the
> fundamental question is this: ignoring the Material Design defaults, simply
> from an interaction point of view, is this better / same / worse than
> dragging the ActionButton? Remember, the logic for having these controls on
> the bottom of the screen is that there they are significantly easier to
> reach there than tapping at the standard menu buttons in the top corners of
> the screen.
> >
>

I've had a very little play with this in the time it takes to eat my
breakfast.  Tested on a Galaxy S6 - a reasonably large phone, but
definitely not tablet/phablet sized.

I think that these buttons are far more intuitive than the central action
button. My initial reaction to the central standard mobilecomponents action
button, like most people, was "what's that?".  Swiping a page is expected,
but not a button.

Having said that, it didn't take long to get used to swiping the central
button, and it is easy and comfortable to use. It's also very efficient:
one button has three actions (swipe left, swipe right, click). The user
just has to know what to do with it.

With the left and right arrow buttons, it's obvious what they do, but I
find it a bit cramped to reach the left button (I'm left handed). It's
doable, but not comfortable. I assume many right-handers will have the same
issue with the right button, but that's rarely needed in Subsurface-mobile.
I actually find it more comfortable to stretch to reach the upper-left
non-action button to open the menu than to use the on at the bottom-left of
the screen.

I agree with Dirk that the left/right buttons would be better if mostly
transparent, and should hide when disabled. I expected the slightly
greyed-out left button to do something.

I'm not sure if it'd be creating a Frankenstein, but I think it's worth at
least thinking about having both options. Then, you could open the left
menu by either: (a) click button on left, (b) swipe button on left to the
right, (c) swipe central action button to the right. The right menu would
be opened similarly. Compared to the single central action button, it
wastes screen real estate (as does the current testing build), but the page
contents I focus on is almost always in the upper two-thirds.

> I copied Marco and Thomas (who leads the HID team for Plasma Mobile) on
this email, please copy them in your responses as I don't believe they are
on this mailing list.

>
> Somehow Marco wasn't copied on the first email...
>

He still wasn't, but I think I've copied him in now.

>
> And I updated things to a build 833 which just adds a little improvement
> so the dive list can be scrolled up above the ActionButton and arrow
> handles.
>
> I tested 832, so can't comment on that change.

Cheers,

Rick
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