Is swipe gesture in Mobile Application distracting users with vertical scroling page ?

Question

Normally Vertical scrolling page that used with up-down gesture for Mobile Application to browse data but also have next page to browse too

Example of Sitemap

• Categories (Table List of Detail)
  • Detail 1 with scrolling vertical
  • Detail 2 with scrolling vertical
  • Detail 3 with scrolling vertical
  • Detail n with scrolling vertical

Normally way to navigate across all data is Categories > Detail 1 > (back button) to Categories and choose another.

Another ways is use Swipe gesture left-right in Detail Page for navigate to next page.

What are you think? It's make distracting to user that need to learning curve for swiping left-right with vertical scrolling in up-down ? two gesture in 1 page

Answer 1

It's definitely okay (see Android's Google+ and Windows Phone 7's Metro UI).

The only problem is discoverability. I would add left/right buttons that animate to each page, so the user picks up on the fact that the pages are to the left and right of each other.

Answer 2

I would think its ok to provide both vertical and horizontal gestures. If you are concerned about the learning curve you could add a context sensitive help overlay that prompts the user regarding the gestures.

Answer 3

In general I don't see a problem to have both swipe directions in one view.

The only thing to consider is what gestures are native to what platform. The behavior described is standard on WP7. On iOS this behavior wasn't recommended by built in iOS apps. With iOS 5 the UISplitViewController can now be swiped in and out of the screen in portrait oritentation, which can be seen in the Mail app. Also third party apps on iOS implement similar functionality like the Google+ app.