Questions tagged [mobile]
Questions relating to mobile computing devices, such as cell phones, tablets, and e-readers. Includes consideration for both small screen size as well as the mobile and "always on" nature of the devices. Questions tagged *mobile* should in one way or another reflect a particular aspect unique to mobile devices, as compared to digital screen design in general
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Hiding vs. disabling actions and show a message on mobile
EDIT To clarify, I meant hiding vs. disabling actions with a message (similar to a toast) showing why it's disabled.
I'm curious as to whether it makes sense to hide or disable actions on mobile. I'...
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How many personas should we use to design a mobile app?
I'm actually working on a mobile app. My boss asked me to focus all the design on one principal user archetype because he thinks that the way to create product interfaces and features with a strong ...
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Do interactive prototypes have to have every single possible screen?
When prototyping an app do you have to prototype every single screen and screen state in the app so it seems like a coded product? Or is it just certain key flows? Wouldn't the prototype run into ...
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Psychology behind $0.99 for paid apps, but $1.00 for donation apps?
I've noticed a trend (at least on the Google Play store) of application prices ending in x.99, while 'donation' apps usually end on the dollar. I see the reasoning behind the psychology that makes a ...
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Should users be forced into a responsive design (without the ability to opt out)?
There is nothing worse than getting automatically redirected to a mobile version of a site, and not having (or not easily finding) a "view normal site" link. It's not just that the mobile site is a ...
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Should the hamburger menu close only on icon click or on click outside as well?
We are using a hamburger menu on the mobile view of our responsive website, http://edmdesigner.com
There's a debate going on in the team:
a) Should the hamburger menu close if you click/tap outside ...
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Should Mobile-optimized sites allow Zooming?
Zooming is common on mobile because sites aren't designed for it; you need to zoom, generally, you don't want to zoom around. Mobile sites are supposed to not need any form of zooming, and often ...
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What's the point in electronic devices beeping on keypress?
Many electronic devices, mostly cell phones, by default beep on keypress. What's the point in that?
Once a key is pressed their state is changed and that's reflected in the graphic interface anyway. ...
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Do material design's floating action buttons provide a bad UX?
Google's material design largely focuses on clean visuals and a good user experience, but there is one feature that I have questioned: floating action buttons.
This is a large button that appears in ...
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Is there a better solution than breadcrumbs to cascading categories on mobile?
I am working on a mobile application (Android ICS based) where I need to show a lot of products on screen. Now the products are categorized in several categories which are on X level, where X is ...
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How to best indicate navigation menu on mobile
What's the best way to indicate the navigation menu on mobile devices?
I see this three-bar icon being used a lot, but do users really understand what it means?
Wouldn't a button simply saying "...
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Should mobile modal popups be movable?
As I see this answer from @JDB stating
I hate it when a modal dialog appears asking me to confirm an action
and the only way I can confirm that, yes, this is the record I want to
delete, is to ...
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Is shaking a device to refresh an accepted behavior?
I have an app that displays downloaded information that is cached. I could use valuable space to include a button that is used to re-download the information, or I could simply add a "shake the device ...
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Use of TWO hamburger menus in mobile app
I have a client who INSISTS on using TWO hamburger menus in their app: one in the top left, one in the top right. This is to basically mirror functionality from two related websites: one uses the left ...
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What is the generally accepted resolution for mobile design?
So, I am a week and a half into a new project, and I've been designing for a resolution of 320px * 480px. I am new to the game and I've just found out that that resolution is too small considering the ...
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How should modal popups and tool tips be handled in responsive websites?
I am reviewing some website wireframes from a client and have decided to make the new site responsive. I've had pretty good luck so far with responsive theming and design from a few past projects and ...
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Is there a "best place" to put ads in an app to avoid user irritation or will users look over them anyway?
I'm embarking on a new project and one of the stipulations from the client is that the Android app I am designing MUST have banner ads in it but they are also to be put where they will "cause the ...
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'Scrolling divs' in mobile land. Yea or nay?
An interesting problem/challenge came up this week where some mobile designs requested a part of the screen be scrollable. This is quite common on desktop sites--typically a little scrolling box for ...
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Is showing a loader inside a button on mobile a good practice?
On many apps the "loading" state is displayed inside a blank screen. I was considering having it directly inside the touched button but I wanted to know if it's something common. I don't have example ...
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What size of a button can a reasonably fat finger comfortably click?
Say my button is square shaped, in a website, and I don't want to cause inconvenience for users with big fingers (and also older people and those who forgot their glasses and aren't precise at hitting ...
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Should we include a "Back to top" button for mobile websites?
When building a mobile web site that needs to be accessible — do you consider it to be best practice to include a "Back to top" anchor link in a footer menu for long pages?
I'm thinking about those ...
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Password field in cleartext
I'm building a mobile web app that will request a bunch of information from the user (name, dob, address, etc) and am trying to cut down as much fields as I can.
I've noticed a new trend where mobile ...
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Should you optimize mobile experiences based on individual handedness?
In abbood's question "How to implement a stack exchange style voting for mobile?" he answers his own question with the following mock-up:
My immediate thought was that the up-vote control was on the ...
user12741
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Do iOS / WP users recognize the Android share icon?
I've been assigned the task to add an icon / CTA to enable users to invite people to our application from their contact list.
Due to width restriction, especially with localization, one of the ...
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How do you map the flow of a mobile application? Can you provide examples?
I'm currently working on the IA/UX for a mobile application and as I'm mapping it out it doesn't seem like a traditional site map makes sense nor does a flowchart. Can anyone point me to a good set of ...
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On mobile phones why is the green (call) button at the left and red (hang) button at the right side?
Some old mobile phones have switched position of green/red buttons.
Currently the green button is at the left and red button is at the right side on mobile phones.
Why? That is rationale? Which ...
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Examples of good user experience design for virtual joystick in mobile or touchscreen games?
Many games for touchscreen mobile devices use virtual joysticks for movement. This has many issues:
You can't see/feel where the joystick is pointing when you are using it.
You can't feel where the '...
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Do icons need labels on mobile apps?
There have already been studies that prove labelling icons enhances usability on desktop applications. This is why Microsoft Outlook started labelling its icons.
Does the same logic apply to mobile ...
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Android List View - delete row button, delete selected button or delete from item click menu?
Android List view activity with item rows. User needs to be able delete some rows.
I know standard way in Android is to use item click menu. But it's 2 clicks. Is it best way?
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Can a mobile application be made using a totally flat design?
In a current attempt at designing a mobile app using a "flat" design à la Windows Modern UI, I noticed that some aspects of the application feel weird to the average user.
The main aspects here being ...
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Should I ask users to rate my app with pop-up window?
I have recently noticed some "high-profile" apps like facebook and twitter randomly displaying pop-up windows to get me to rate their app. Seems to be a fairly new trend...good idea?
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Is 320px wide designs still relevant? (responsive web)
For a couple of years the smallest design I make for responsive websites is 375px wide. Now our new frontend developer eats my brain that I should provide 320px wide. And even if I will not she will ...
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Selecting age between 6 and 18
I've got a reasonably simple requirement but can't come up with any appealing ways of presenting it to the user.
To meet the requirement, the user has to be able to choose 1 or more age groups, ...
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Changing the language of a website
While travelling abroad, I often get pages on websites that are normally in English for me (e.g. images.google.com) served instead in whatever the local language is. The problem is that I can't read ...
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Hangman game on mobile - Qwerty or alphabetical keyboard
I'm building a hangman game as part of a bigger mobile educational application. As you know for hangman you select letters and see if they are part of the word or sentence. I'm trying to decide if I ...
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Are "submit" buttons important for forms on iPhone and Android apps?
When inputting text on the last text field in a form on an iPhone and Android app, the enter key can be highlighted or (on iOS anyway) renamed "done", so that tapping it will submit the form. ...
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What should be the maximum length of a page on Mobile Website?
What should be the maximum length of a page on Mobile Website? I'm making a website in which some pages are long because of lengthy articles. Should I divide long pages into multiple pages?
Should I ...
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When is using haptic feedback for button presses a good idea?
I've noticed that on Android phones only some button presses result in haptic feedback. For example, pressing any of the 3 main buttons (Back, Home, Multitask) will cause the phone to vibrate. So does ...
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Why are icons on mobile phone menu screens square or rectangular but not circular?
If you take a look at the app page of any mobile OS, for example iOS, Android, Ubuntu, Win8, BADA, etc., they all have square icons, either with rounded corner or sharp corners (shown in the first ...
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research: dark or light UI better outside
Has anyone done any studies or found any good research to see if a dark interface or a light interface is good for viewing outside on a mobile device? Does the color of the interface make a difference,...
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Contact form on mobile vs. mailto: link?
I have decided to put a contact form in the footer for my portfolio site and opening the question up to include any site where the decision was to add a contact form on the desktop version...
Would ...
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Search Icon vs Search Input Box - Both Require One Click/Touch: Which to use?
I'm working on a mobile site of a rather large site. There are quite a few iA and navigation hurdles already, so I'm pushing to use a search icon instead of a traditional search input box.
My ...
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Should we use ‘narrow and deep’ or ‘broad and shallow’ navigation pattern on mobile devices?
If we have a large content environment on a mobile device, we need some way to access that content with ease. One could implement a narrow and deep navigation pattern which gives the possibility for ...
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How to help users navigate a very long list on mobile
I recently came across SXSW's native apps on iPhone and Android. Both apps revolve around the conference's schedule. On the home-screen of both apps, you get the day's schedule, which is actually a v-...
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What are the best practices of designing a validation message on an iPhone App?
I am working on designing an iPhone app and I need to know which validation message style is the most recommended for the forms included.
I don't prefer to use a pop up window i need something that ...
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How to force user to select a location and not simply type it?
Let's suppose this simple form:
So, the user is expected to enter the keywords of the meeting's full address.
While typing, suggestions are displayed (autocomplete feature).
Here's an example: ...
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How to present an optional binary choice without a preset value?
How would you go about approaching a form where the user should pick one of the binary choices (yes/no) in the UI, but it should also not be enforced to block advancement within the flow.
So ...
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Why is a scrollable bottom tab bar discouraged?
Why is horizontal scrolling in a bottom tab bar commonly discouraged? Both iOS and Android guidelines discourage it.
And for some reason scrolling navigation is sometimes okay at the top? (Android ...
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What is the best practice for displaying a data grid on a mobile device?
I can't find resources, guidelines or best practices for natively displaying a data grid on an enterprise mobile app?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
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Mobile global/sub navigation for a long scrolling page?
A website with long page scrolling with deep hierarchical content wants to follow best practices when adapted to mobile. The designer currently recommends that the navigation change to a local ...
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