Long press action clue/indicator

Question

On a desktop and touch devices, I'd like to know is there is a way to tell the user that some control could be clicked (one action) and long pressed (another action)?

Real-world example:

• We have column chart

• Tap performed on column 2007 (single selection)

• Tap performed on column 2009 (single selection)

• Long press performed on column 2010 (single selection)

Current situation is that user doesn't know that chart has possibility to multi-select columns (perform long press). How to indicate that it is possible?

Answer 1

Since the bars have both a click and a long press, i reckon there are a couple of ways to acheive this.

• Write a small info note at the end informing the users about the long press
• Give some visual feedback , like a small circle filling up as the user makes contact with the page/touches the page.
• one more form of visual feedback : start 'filling' the bar with color when user makes contact. click will make the bar fill up instantly, when that is seen . i guess the user will make an attempt to fill it up slowly, i.e long press .
  • in the above scenario, once user has long pressed, i'd recommend elevating the selected bar above the others to make sure it was selected via long-press or use a different fill color.

We used the last scenario for an app where user had this same confusion , but then again those were cards and not bars. But i hope this helps :)

Answer 2

Changing the color of the column may be too little for the user to know that he have selected something. Along with the color change, you could display a top toolbar showing how many items the user selected along with the option to cancel selection and other specific actions.

Someting like that:

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

I hope it helps :)