Android alpha -832 with experimental mobile components change

Thomas Pfeiffer thomas.pfeiffer at kde.org
Fri Feb 12 07:19:32 PST 2016


On Freitag, 12. Februar 2016 06:50:00 CET Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 10:38:28AM +0100, Jan Mulder wrote:
> > On 11-02-16 20:34, Dirk Hohndel 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 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.> 
> > To answer the fundamental question. I like the central ActionButton with
> > the 2 handles better than the new separated arrow handles in the corners
> > and a central ActionButton without handles. For me, it feels crowded with
> > 3 controls (and the old style felt like 1 multi purpose control to me;
> > less crowded). I also do not really like the new arrow handles being in
> > the very corner of the screen, not the easiest place to touch the screen,
> > and not the area where most people focus on a relatively small mobile
> > screen.
> > 
> > Obviously, things like auto hiding and less opaque arrow handles might
> > resolve my remark about "too full with controls", but that is not the
> > issue
> > here. For me, the current interface of the app feels "unbalanced" as in
> > old
> > style hamburger menu, edit pencil etc. combined with a ActionButton that
> > can be used for the exact same user operations. I think that it is better
> > to chose for 1 style.
> 
> There are obviously diverging (and strongly felt) opinions on this one.
> 
> We added the "hamburger" menu button (and other action buttons) back to
> the top bar because a number of users felt strongly that that's what they
> wanted. This even got one of our recently not as active developers back
> into working on Subsurface, spending the effort to get the toolchain for
> Android to work, all so that he could add those Android typical items back
> to the top bar.
> 
> Frankly, I'm torn. On the one hand I strongly believe in the principle of
> least surprise and I know that the casual Android user will expect the
> hamburger menu and the action icons in the top bar - that's where all the
> other Android apps have them.
> 
> On the other hand I'm really impressed with what the Plasma HID team is
> doing and could see a solution with just the Action Button being rather
> elegant and powerful.
> 
> My current thinking is that having the additional items in the top bar
> doesn't really cause any harm. They don't waste screen real estate (since
> we aren't going to drop the top bar completely - ok, maybe we could make
> it thinner, but that's not a huge difference), they are easy and obvious
> to even a casual user.

I would definitely advise against having controls for opening the drawers both 
at the top _and_ at the bottom. That appears not only redundant, but actually 
confusing because you have two controls that do exactly the same, yet look and 
feel different. This will make users ask themselves whether the drawers opened 
from the top or bottom control maybe only look the same at first, but are 
actually different.

So I'd say that the duplicated controls actually do cause "harm".

This is a point where you have to decide: Either you aim for full consistency 
with Material Design apps even if it's an ergonomic disadvantage, then you 
should ditch the handles at the bottom and use only the buttons in the top bar 
(plus dragging the action button if there is one). 
Or you take the bold step to diverge from the norm for something better 
adapted to the larger phones we have these days and drop the buttons in the 
header.
There are definitely good arguments for both positions, but you have to make a 
decision.

Heaving a page title at the top makes sense, as long as there are no controls 
in that hard-to-reach area.

The thing is: Whatever you do in user interface / interaction design, you will 
never make _everybody_ absolutely happy. It's not possible. What you should 
aim for is a design that makes significantly more people happy than unhappy. 
That's the best you can do, at least for an application that people use by 
choice.
If you're designing something that everybody _has_ to use without alternative, 
things are different, but that's really a rare case.

If you design to avoid making anybody unhappy, you may be able to reach that 
goal, but at the cost of not making anybody actually happy, either.

> The question is more complicated with the handles on the bottom - and
> that's why we are doing these alpha binaries so people can try them and
> tell us what they think. I'll make a new binary with the transparent
> handles soon so we can collect more feedback.

Yes, the idea with the bottom corner handles still has to stand the test of 
actual usage, and I'm excited to see what the results will be!

Cheers,
Thomas


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