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With mobile devices, there are (at least) 2 kinds of user actions that could be called "shake"

  1. Shaking the device itself
  2. Shaking some draggable item (à la Windows 7 shake-to-minimize-other-windows)

I can't come up with any sensible names to differentiate these two actions. Does anybody know of reasonable terms for these actions?

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How common is shaking some draggable item? What real-world action corresponds to this metaphor? – dnbrv Mar 26 '12 at 19:56
I don't know that there's a direct real-world action that corresponds well, but after seeing it used in Windows, it got me curious as to how it might work on a mobile platform. IMO it's a garbage feature on the desktop, but it strikes me as a potential alternative for some of the awkward or unintuitive mobile gestures I see in abundance (triple tap, multi-finger swipe, combinations of short/long press). – Chris Bye Mar 26 '12 at 20:15
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That's my point: don't clog your mind with uncommon, strange, confusing interactions. – dnbrv Mar 26 '12 at 20:51
It doesn't seem as obviously as bad as the common gestures I see elsewhere, at least worth exploring in a few contexts. – Chris Bye Mar 27 '12 at 1:08

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote

Jiggle seems like the word that an interface would use to describe shaking a dragable item. According to wolfram alpha, jiggle means

  1. noun - a slight irregular shaking motion
  2. verb - move to and fro
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