Hot answers tagged touch-screen
41
Don't rely on shaking as the only way of selecting any common action. The exception is novelty apps like whips or throwing dice.
For other apps it is poor UX as it:
Is uncommon behaviour for many users, as most apps (sanely) don't use this action.
Has poor discoverability as there is no cue on the screen letting you know how to use it. There may be an ...
17
I usually get both eager and upset everytime I stuble upon advanced UX topics, like Fitts' law.
Eager because I find the basic research very interesting, and upset because there are so many misinterpretations of these.
I actually have my own version Fitts' law:
Don't use Fitts' law as a formula, use it as a guideline.
So, what is the simple ...
9
In Designing Gestural Interfaces, Dan Saffer touches (!) the subject of Fitts' Law in relation to touchscreens (specifically pp. 40-2.) Saffer argues that the law holds true for gestural interfaces; minimize reaching across the interface and making sure that targets are appropriately sized to accommodate the "cursor" (i.e., the finger.)
However, he also ...
9
To answer your specific question, users should not be able to activate disabled options.
To diverge from UX standards like this is a bad idea - most users would never click the disabled button, and those who did (likely by accident) would be surprised by the result.
They way I would solve this is to display printer status next to the button. Normally, this ...
9
The guidelines given for the various platforms are all based on the idea that the minimum size should be 9-12mm. The variation between the guidelines is mostly due to differing pixel densities on the devices, and hence different number of pixels needed to reach the 9-12mm figure.
Note, that this isn't an ideal dimension to make the button easier to use, ...
8
Let's assume for a moment that we're talking about a touch interface without any other controls.
Direct Manipulation
As noted in the comments above, there are a limited number of gestures for directly manipulating content. From gestureworks:
The Tap family are all out.
Rotation is possible, but unlikely to be intuitive. It's also not particularly ...
8
You could try something like this:
Note the line breaks at left and right as well as the cut off text.
Omit the left line breaks if nothing to swipe to at left.
Even the line breaks alone would be a very simple cue that would be better than nothing if the cut off text is a problem to implement:
8
I definitely wouldn't do this; the pull down to refresh mentioned in John's answer is probably the most common gesture. Though if refreshing isn't automatic or is a common action for non-power users I'd personally recommend just sticking with a button; you have a pretty universal "refresh" icon at your disposal and refresh is quite often initiated from a ...
8
Yes, size can be an issue. Touch targets need to be bigger than typical desktop targets because the finger precision is worse than the pointer+mouse precision. With this worst precision the odds to do missed taps is bigger (like not touching a button or touching the incorrect one).
Usually, touch studies use as principal study variable the error rate. The ...
7
If you're confident in the quality of the touch-screen, your design is a good one.
Some points to note:
Some touch panels, particularly bigger ones, have quite a lot of noise and can have "dead spots" where the touch is not (as easily) registered. You may want to delay snapping back the item once you notice the touch event finishing if you can.
It's not ...
7
I have to start off by saying I haven't seen any research one way or the other.
Guideline vs. Requirement
I should note that you're asking if the spacing between the touch targets is an unnecessary requirement, when you reference their guidelines. The difference between these two is pretty key. I believe Microsoft isn't stating you should be required to ...
7
In Android 4.0, positive buttons are on the right and negative buttons are on the left. This is commonly seen in Android alert dialogs and uninstall screens where "OK" is on the right and "Cancel" is on the left.
Also, the Android design guidelines have always suggested steering away from button bars across the bottom of a screen as that's more of an ...
7
Following platform conventions is the most important factor here. Different platforms play by different rules and ignoring this can confuse and alienate users.
If you look through the screenshots displayed in the Android design guidelines, you will find a variety of examples that show that in the latest android version the primary button should go on the ...
7
UX wise, I think there is very little argument that having the keys display the character that they represent is a good idea. So the question either comes down to a design decision, or one that they simply didn't consider.
I suspect that Apple were initially trying to mimic the look of a traditional keyboard, and so avoided doing this primarily as a design ...
7
There is little doubt that for most people a touch device has positive psychological effects. Watch a small child using a tablet vs a computer, or even better, watch an autistic person interact with a tablet. Watch their faces as it opens a new world to them, and you will be convinced.
Touch screens allow people to interact more naturally with devices as ...
6
I'm sure this is not the answer you want to hear, but there are THREE behaviors that should be implemented. When a user's touchstart occurs outside the slider area, the default behavior should occur (either scrolling or a link click ect.), but when the touchstart is inside the slider area one of three things needs to happen:
Lock touchmoves to the slider, ...
6
As you can see on its wikipedia page, Fitts Law goes well beyond 2D movement (and HCI in general).
What's known as Fitts Law originates from a (military) memorandum written by P.M Fitts in 1947 (warning: pdf link) that deals with ergonomics of WW2 airplane cockpits, and how the layout of instruments, their scales and the directions of their indicators may ...
6
Microsoft's touch interaction guidelines for Metro apps (generally used on screens like those) vary from 5–9 mm square, depending on the tolerance you provide to undo accidental presses.
Touch screens aren't all built alike, though; some are extremely precise and some are very poor with touch accuracy. As the panels increase in size to 17 inches and above ...
6
No. The only actions with true equivalence in both environments are taps and clicks.
Swipes and drag-and-drops aren't the same, because dragging and dropping is much harder ergonomically, so you wouldn't rely on it as you would with swipes. Swipes don't map to mouse movements either, as you can have nonsemantic mouse movements as the user innocently moves ...
6
I think designing for touch first could be a good general strategy for websites. It seems many designers, myself included, find it easier add features to an existing design than to remove them. So designing an application without assuming a pointer (the touch version), then adding pointer embellishments for the traditional computer version seems like it ...
6
Touch screens are really still at an early stage in the life and history of mobile devices, but touch (or haptic) feedback is at an even earlier stage of development (despite probably having been around for longer!), largely due to lack of funding, cost of prototyping and risk of non-widespread take up.
Rachel Hinman (currently at Nokia) is a thought leader ...
5
The Twitter client I use on Android is called Plume. It handles hover replacement very well:
In a list of things (tweets or Firefox addons, whatever), the entire list item invites a tap. Tapping slides down a menu with actions that can be taken on the selected entry. Simple, and it makes good use of screen real estate.
5
This won't work with just thumb, but neither does pinch.
Have the user put 4 fingers spread on the screen, the map then zooms in so that the polygon whose vertices are your fingers fills the whole screen. To me this seems much more intuitive than pinch zoom, especially for pictures and maps. For instance, if I have a picture with a face in it, I just put ...
5
I would suggest keeping the sliders even for touch devices.
I was doing some testing recently with someone that has had an iPad for 2 years, and discovered that they did not know that you could pinch to zoom. I'm sure they are not alone in this.
Also, touch devices are often used by people that are physically unable to pinch to zoom, and who rely on the ...
5
One of my favourite soluion for this is pulse's: on first run, display an overlay with help:
you can show this once, and never worry about it again. Of course it has downsides as well: user forget it quickly, or ...
But you should thick to the Android 4.x design conventions, section swiping between tabs.
Also a good idea would be something like the ...
5
The interactions aren't necessarily mapped consistently one-to-one across mediums and devices.
For instance, there is no swipe or pinch(typically) via a mouse. Conversely there's no mouseover or right click via touch.
Furthermore, there's things to consider such as keyboard navigation as well as touch pad navigation.
So, short version is that there is ...
5
Firstly, try to make that gesture as simple as possible (probably requiring only one finger) and as differentiated as possible from the usual ones (used for other purposes elsewhere) such as the two-finger zoom. "Differentiated" here does not imply that the gesture needs to be absolutely different but it should ideally be a less common one so that user can ...
5
Have a "stick", pop it up!
on touch, substract about a thumbful (let's say, 40 px) from the y coordinate of the selected icon, and draw a line of that length from the middle of the icon downwards. Use this as a handle.
Google Maps uses a similar technique for moving (dragging) markers:
5
Shaking is a physical gesture. Apart from a physical gesture, there should be a primary digital counterpart too.
Volume can be controlled by sliding the volume bar of clicking the volume buttons.
Phone can be answered by swiping/moving the slider or clicking the handsfree button.
Physical gestures can be thought of as short-cuts, it is fine if you have ...
4
I agree with Microsoft, a very good example on iPhone is the music controls available while the screen is locked.
I use these a lot in the gym or out for a walk, unfortunately the next/prev and play buttons are small in size and very close together in a small area of the screen.
Occasionally I accidentally hit the prev function halfway through a podcast and ...
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