Hot answers tagged zooming
109
Yes, you should allow Zooming.
I have changed my mind on this from having worked on RWD projects in the past. Originally my opinion was 'people only used to zoom on mobiles because the site wasn't designed to work on a mobile, but that's not the case with a well designed RWD site' however I changed my opinion, partly from some user testing that was ...
16
As Kyle Schaeffer put it:
You should only disable the zoom feature if it enhances users’ ability
to consume content on your site. If you’ve formatted your design
layout so that users don’t need to pan or zoom, the zoom feature
actually impairs the user from navigating your content (which only
needs to scroll vertically). If you’ve incorrectly ...
10
I have missed the zooming ability on most of the mobile optimized sites I've seen. Mostly because links and buttons are too small or to close to each other (the text size haven't been a problem). I usually switch back to the ordinary desktop view.
BUT: A well designed app should not bump into such issues...
So, that brings us back to the essence of ...
9
Based on my mobile user research, I would rather not to disable the zooming option.
People I have interviewed during usability studies were coming with the same mental models they had created while using desktop computers. It means their goals and habits do not change.
As long as people are used to zoom (especially in pictures and infographics), we should ...
6
Yes - I've seen this here at Bravissimo.com It's actually got a very slick feel to it.
There is a jquery plugin called cloud zoom from Professor cloud - You want the inner zoom option. This is what the website above is using.
5
If it's a mobile site, you should enable zooming. It's true that native mobile apps don't allow zooming, but I think the users have different expectations for native apps vs mobile sites.
You may think the font size you picked for your mobile optimized site is... "optimized," but you can never guarantee that. People with eye sight problem would always ...
3
I am attending An Event Apart right now and a question like this came up - can you prevent or disable features for the user that they are otherwise used to having on their device. The answer was unanimous that best practice is you should not do this, but you can anticipate and build in ways to respond to it. By the way another part of the conference brought ...
3
My philosophy is to not purposefully block any existing functionality without a good reason. Mobile sites need to not require zooming, but since you don't have to develop it and you actually need to invest more in blocking than in allowing it - why not let users have it?
We block functionality when it's a matter of error prevention, of not letting the user ...
2
Good question! The true solution will come from usability studies conducted on the device you are working on. However, generic best-known methods would indicate something in the following lines:
Controls should not fade out. That would be the system taking over decisions (the decision to operate or not) from the user.
You should go back to no blobs. This ...
2
A mechanism used in some cases is simply to click with the mouse at the point about which you want to zoom in/out and then drag the mouse up to zoom in and down to zoom out.
Typically a 2D view can be click-dragged via the left mouse button, so usually the click-drag to zoom would be off the right mouse button. In some applications a modifier like ALT is ...
2
I think in your case I wouldn't invent a new zooming process, just simply use what Google Earth does! (which is also a desktop app)
On the other hand what extra features does your product include what Google Earth doesn't have?
2
Though I would like to go with what elumalai suggested i.e using Cntrl (+) and Cntrl (-) (or command (+) or command (-) in Mac's) to zoom in and zoom out respectively ,the challenge you would face with that approach is that these are system defined shortcuts and unless you can find a way of overriding them,you will not be able to use these. Hence I would ...
2
I'm afraid I can't directly answer the research part of the question, but I can rant about my personal opinion, for what it's worth: One long-standing problem I have had with zoomable interfaces is that they expand things rather than zooming.
The human brain is really very good at keeping track of where stuff is. It already uses a zooming interface and has ...
2
Asking for patterns and precedents to emulate is going to be quite hit and miss, because there is no universal pattern for zooming. There are many different ways of implementing this sort of behaviour, each with advantages and disadvantages for different use-cases. Without knowing what sorts of information you present, how your users expect to navigate it ...
1
Well, technically zooming only exists for the mobile browser so that sites not optimized for the screen size can be viewed by the user. Native apps don't zoom. They might zoom some content, such as an image, but the interface doesn't zoom. The user is stuck with the defaults. So, to me, the questing of some sites optimized for mobile needing zoom means that ...
1
I'm assuming the image is high resolution? OR that there are a lot of small images on the screen.
If the whole image fits on the screen wouldn't tapping make more sense?
If the image doesn't fit on the screen, allow the user to zoom/pinch/drag to search for the symbol they're searching for. Once it's visible on the screen they should be able to tap on it. ...
1
If your site is iPad-specific, disabling zooming is definitely ok.
iPad users are definitely comfortable with non-zooming UI. Consider iPad native apps - they never require zoom for normal navigation. Zoom is only used for very specific controls in apps - such as enlarging images/photos/maps. If your content in native-app form would not include zooming, ...
1
I would go for option 2 (retain the same centre). This approach means that a user who has focussed on the part of the image which is of interest (which they would typically have in the centre of their visual field) can retain that focus. In practice, people tend to keep items of interest centrally located rather than on the periphery.
1
Pinch-to-zoom and swipe-to-swap, among other new touch conventions are not only useful but have become expected by users, as Steven Woods from Flickr explains in his YUI Theater seminar, Creating Responsive HTML5 Touch Interfaces.
1
Great Question! I think what you would like to see is a user not getting lost in a site with potentially 10 billion pages. To give you one example, the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Library uses a specific technique to ensure users not getting lost (see image). To the right I’ve highlighted certain elements which could be called breadcrumbs, but are ...
1
Downloadable software also has (Ctr +/-) option for Zoom In Zoom Out like Adobe Collections.
IMHO is (Ctrl +) Zoom In (Ctrl -) for Zoom Out. We need to stick with with what users are originally comfortable with.
Also we need to consider for basic shortcut keys. Then only you need to change the natural things.
My second opinion is:
We can use (ctrl + >) ...
1
It's only a suggestion, but you might try to implement a system that zooms depending on how long the user pressed the zoom button. I think it would be nice to make the content zoom along with the mouse button. So, as long as the user holds the mouse button/keyboard button pressed, keep zooming smoothly and slowly enough to make sure the user has to ability ...
1
According to me the zoom factor should also correspond to whether any new information is made visible by zooming using that zoom factor. Ie whether its 15% or 30% if nothing new is shown once the user zooms once, the user has to zoom many times to actually get to what he/she wants to see.
Conversely if the zoom is too much the user will lose orientation ...
1
CTRL+Mousewheel is the default control to change magnification of content in general and it's used primarily for enlarging content in case of visual disabilities. Don't ever change its function.
Firefox supports pure mousewheel zooming via JavaScript. Google Maps has multiple options for zooming: double-clicking, mousewheel (intercepted from default ...
1
Can you use the same magic-y keyboard shortcut goodness that Google uses in several of their apps? https://www.google.com/reader/ui/660982038-en-keyboard-help-tearoff?hl=en
Just to see what happens, I hit the + key in Reader and it will set the zoom level for whatever feed you have currently selected. The label adjusts to the feed's current zoom size:
...
1
http://www.visual-blast.com/javascript/jqzoom-22-jquery-image-zoom-tool/
This is one of the best zooming tools I've seen. It works smooth as it is jQuery and is not heavy performed. I think zooming window position is customisable.
I hope it works fine for you.
1
On the CHI2010 a group of researchers suggested a gesture named "Cyclo star", which consists of a circle gesture to initiate zooming. After the initiation you can just carry on "drawing circles" to zoom in, similar to operating a wheel.
You can see it in this video
its described and evaluated in a this paper: http:// dmrussell.net/CHI2010/docs/p2615.pdf
...
1
The fading out is good, I think. Otherwise you would need a way to get rid of the blobs.
I feel that going back to no blobs on the third is confusing and unclear. Also, it takes another two clicks to get back to two blobs. On adding a third blob I would remove the first one, leaving you with two blobs - 2nd and 3rd. On adding a fourth we remove the 2nd and ...
1
Piccolo2D is a Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs) toolkit, though it may not be a good fit for a CAD application.
Oberon may also be of interest.
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