Hot answers tagged ios
51
I think you should test users "motor coordination" & reflexes. After all, that's what traffic police does when he stops you.
Some sort of game where the user needs to quickly burst some randomly appearing bubbles (= reflex test) and draw straight lines (= motor coordination test) on the screen comes to my mind.
EDIT
Alcohol impairment is also ...
36
Other than a silly novelty thing (e.g., the gmail labs "mail goggles") or requiring a breathalyzer attachment to activate (e.g., your application starts automobiles for people with past DUIs), its not worth it.
Assuming your application is useful and people will want to use it while both drunk and sober, any barriers that could differentiate the ability of ...
33
How do we know when to test if the user drunk?
An app that requires a test before you can use it at start up will be so frustrating you'll stop using it immediately, well intentioned or not. A schedule system would allow users to specify when they wish to be tested (e.g. I might be drunk after 8 PM on fridays and saturdays). Most importantly, this could ...
26
If a multiplatform app has an iPhone-ish UI because it was first developed to iOS, I see that as a cheap solution and negligence of the other platforms. If a vendor takes the time to develop the application to integrate properly with the OS, have a native UI, use differentiating features (like notifications in Android) etc., that's much more appealing than ...
26
You are confusing mobile phones with iOS.
The icons should be neither round nor square for the best UX. They should be allowed to have a unique outline to improve scanability and hence make them easier to use.
This is exactly what Android has done, and it is a significant UX improvement over iOS.
Edit: It appears that many people are unable to focus on ...
24
You should allways follow the style guide of the platform you're targeting. That way it'll be much easier for your users to understand how the app works. If you do the opposite you'll end up with unnecessary cognitive load on your Android users trying to figure out how your iOS-like app works.
20
drag'n'drop nearly always has bad affordance.
The current model in gmail is the following:
Albeit I'm not sure if they're really serious about it, esp. as it only appears to the hovered element.
The previous one was this:
More dragg-ish, but still bad.
I think in order to reach good affordance with a drag-n-drop control, it either has to be ...
17
Microsoft have experimented with this idea with their Xbox Live companion app for each platform.
Here's the My Xbox LIVE app for iOS:
Images taken from the My Xbox LIVE app listing on the iTunes App Store
…and here's the same app on Android:
Images taken from the My Xbox LIVE app listing on Google Play
…and lastly, here are some screens from ...
16
Fade out the edge that wraps (as well as leaving the button hanging over the edge so that it's clearer that there is more unseen content. Clearer because not only is what is off screen not visible but a little bit of what is on screen is not visible as well.
Alternatively try and make out that it's like a conveyor belt or something that physically wraps ...
15
Because whitespace is important. Being able to quickly skim the list and pick out who said each response is important. By adding left and right whitespace it makes the list of messages far easier to scan. It also makes the application instantly accessible from the very first sight; if it were just white and green with no justification, then people seeing the ...
15
I've always found "standard resolution" to be clear when speaking to people, but that is likely to change with time.
It is important to know that "retina" is an Apple trademark and not a technical term for a resolution, so I try to avoid the term. Android is more specific by using the terms hdpi (1.5x) and xhdpi (2x or retina equivalent), so when speaking ...
15
The reason may be the better space usage within the icon badge. Having square, or rounded square, you can place a bigger icon inside, with less space wasted:
The dashed line represents the placeholder for an icon and app name within the interface. The badge itself within this space can be bigger if it's square-ish than when it's round. This gives more ...
15
If you have the resources, you should follow the guidelines for whichever platform the app is on.
In the past many companies considered iOS to be 'the market' and only made Android apps as an afterthought. As a result, they often simply built an iOS app in Android to save them time and cost. This wasn't done because it was a better way of doing it, just a ...
12
Because the Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines say it should be there:
Appearance and Behavior -
A tab bar appears at the bottom edge of the screen and should be accessible from every location in the application. A tab bar displays icons and text in tabs, all of which are equal in width and display a black background by default. When users select a ...
12
You could maybe get some ideas from the Social Media Sobriety Test - this includes drawing a line along the screen and keeping it within the prescribed box - haven't tried it after drinking so can't tell you if it works!
12
The most important difference seems to be the contrast between the key background and the letters. Note also that the font on the iPhone keyboard is bold while the iPad's is not.
The iPhone is much smaller and likely to be used outdoors so the extremely bright off-white shade of the keys makes sense. Black-on-White is ideal for outdoors, though the iPad's ...
11
Check out Jakon Nielsen's thoughts on the issue. The video linked at the bottom is only 3 minutes long and is interesting, if not directly useful.
General thoughts (no facts to back this up other than personal experience):
If you need to fall back to a design for another platform, fall back to PC designs, NOT iPod designs. If you can get your hands on an ...
11
I completely understand your sentiments towards Metro (or whatever they're calling it now). It's simple, clean, alive, just overall wonderful. However, I think it's an awful idea to spread across all other platforms.
Each platform has a set of design and functionality standards that their users are accustomed to so by introducing the Metro UI to users on ...
10
Three bar icons are now being used widely to indicate a "show list/menu" function - it's not just Chrome. Below are screenshots from Day One and PlaceMe (I only had to open a couple of apps to find examples of this usage).
I believe the icon was a poor choice by Apple (in hindsight) - it does not give a clear interaction cue, it's more of a reorderable ...
9
They do this because it is easily recognizable by their users. Apple stresses using standard interface elements in their iOS Human Interface Guidelines:
In iOS, the UIKit framework provides a wide range of UI elements that you can use in your application. As you design the user interface of your app, always remember that users expect the standard views ...
9
I'm spinning on with JOG's points on inviting a user to rate and also enforcing user interaction once rated.
Default:
When slidinig down:
When sliding up:
This approach incorporates the controls of the Youtube like/dislike control which enforces user interaction with feedback.
This could be a way to invite users to use the rating control and it will ...
9
The control looks great and is intuitive, I would only change 2 things:
Make the default a positive ~75% rating [or whichever produces the :) before the awesome :D rating], because:
It's the most recognizable emoticon which would best convey what the slider does
A satisfied customer will just want to finish the process as quickly as possible and quite ...
9
Your question assumes that
a) date pickers (they aren't called spinners) aren't appropriate everywhere,
b) date pickers can't be modified,
and c) the design guidelines must be followed to the tee.
Thus, I think the proper answer would be a review of SDK manuals & UX guidelines not in any kind of research.
First of all, guidelines are called that way ...
8
Different apps for different platforms?
Please first take a look at this similar question and excellent answers: Should Android and iPhone UI be different?. In general you want to tailor your UI to each specific platform. Users on that platform are going to have platform-specific expectations, such as availability of home screen widgets and BACK button ...
8
Working on the assumption that you've addressed the information architecture issues and determined that there are infact this many primary and secondary navigation options required for the application there are a few routes you can take for displaying multiple options in a tab-panel (or similar control).
The first example here is from Snapseed:
Here ...
8
I'm sorry to say this, but what you do when reading is not important. What your users do is all that matters. So you have to ask your users how they read books on a handheld device. If 90% or more say portrait - then you can use portrait only (and lose the 10% landscape readers, if your business plan say so). But if you don't have enough data to say "yeah ...
8
I agree with Benny's answer and I will amplify it by adding a real-world use-case that baffled me when I first encountered it: the iPad dock.
(Source: Engadget)
The official iPad Dock (with or without the keyboard) ensures that the iPad remains in portrait orientation. This is not the orientation most people, I believe, want to do things like watch a ...
8
Apple's iOS guidelines say to "Think twice before hiding the status bar if your app is not a game or full-screen media-viewing app." I think their attitude is that if you don't really need the extra space, leave the status bar visible so people can see the time and battery life. Also, from same link above, "don't create a custom status bar."
7
I'm not sure that these are two competing models.
I remember some online discussion over the merits of FAT vs. NTFS, and then some Apple guy came by and said something like "Apple users don't even know they have a file system". I think this made the Digg front page. The point is that MS and Apple are indeed trying to get away from the file system, ...
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