Finger control: looking for the perfect interface
It so happened that professional diseases of interface designers are allergic to inconvenience, irritability when interacting with complex processes, hypersensitivity to taste deficiency, inadequate reaction to the absence of logic. Therefore, it is quite difficult for them to find a suitable application for their needs. And if desktops and laptops, by virtue of age, have already managed to acquire high-quality programs for almost all applications, then in the world of mobile applications there is often a thoughtless copy-paste of desktop solutions.
Especially acutely high-quality failure began to show itself with the advent of applications in which developers took into account the peculiarities of touch screen control, and made a bet on new ways of interaction. And immediately from all over the Internet, cries of “revolutionary design”, “innovative management”, and “convenient minimalistic interface” fell down.
Let's try to understand the intricacies of interaction with touch screens, and understand how to achieve such convenience and ease of control.
Before I got an iPad, I heard a lot of laudatory songs about Apple. The fact that they made a revolution by creating finger-oriented devices. About how convenient and beautiful iOs system is. About how they control their store, not allowing there low-quality applications. About how many people now use tablets instead of laptops to solve many of their everyday tasks. For work and hobby, for communication and entertainment.
')
And it’s not that I naively believed in all this, but I really wanted to see what was really happening in the tablet world. In the end, for sure in the three years of its existence, the developers have already written many applications that can be used not only for entertainment, but also for work or a hobby. Moreover, the way of interacting with the touching screen greatly expands the possibilities of managing the application, which means surely there are tools that, in principle, do not exist on desktops, with their unique way of interacting, with their unique capabilities.
And it seems to be yes. I found a lot of graphic artists, notebooks, planners, musical instruments, browsers, PCC readers, even a full-fledged vector editor, direct illustrator for the iPad. I downloaded, tried, downloaded more, tried, collecting my set of working tools. And in the end, he identified for himself the most interesting applications in which you can draw, design, write text, extract sounds and much more, but ...
How many inconvenient junk in appstore!
Applications that are really convenient to use - units. The rest eitherlook like one of their own kind insult my sense of beauty, or use them terribly uncomfortable, or get from them what I want is very difficult. There are also those that look nice, the management is more or less competently configured, functionally quite suitable, but minor deficiencies or glitches in details nullify all the existing advantages.
The most important difference between tablets from desktops and laptops in the way of management. Working with the mouse on the desktops, we almost do not move our hand, and the cursor at the same time freely moves on the big screen. And then there's the scroll wheel right under your fingers.
With the tablet everything is different. We constantly have to move our hand across the screen to press something, move something, hold a finger somewhere. This is not as comfortable as moving the mouse, and it is extremely important for developers to find ways to minimize this inconvenience.
Another feature of the tablet, which the developers do not attach enough importance - a small screen area. Only 10 inches. Of the most common models of tablets is the maximum size. Let's imagine it next to a large and comfortable 20-inch something home monitor, on which so much you can fit. The tablet is two or even three times smaller. Judge for yourself - the screen is smaller, the accuracy of hitting is smaller, while managing the screen is constantly covered by hand, and the developers stubbornly continue to sculpt their interfaces from desktop solutions, not realizing that they no longer work as successfully here.
And here they are trying to fit on the screen workspace, controls, toolbars, so that everything was at hand, supposedly it is convenient when everything is at hand. And the screen is nothing. Even the working area stretched over the entire screen area is often insufficient for comfortable work, and here there is also panels, buttons, menus.
After studying the solutions used in a variety of applications, I came to the conclusion that it is quite possible to make work on a tablet comfortable. And I really wanted to collect these solutions and principles in one place, in the hope that the developers, if they don’t listen, will at least think about the features of the form factor and try to find the best solution.
There are only three key points:
Consider them more closely.
Everything is simple - we cannot stretch the tablet, it means that the only way out is to use the entire available screen area for the work area. All over! Without "but." There are no panels on the screen with buttons or with any information. The whole place for the most important, for which we have opened this application. We take this decision as a fundamental principle, and it remains for us to figure out how and where to locate the controls.
The options here are not so few.
We impose some basic actions on gestures. Just do not forget to show the screen with a description of these gestures when you first start.
Not enough gestures and nothing better than the buttons invented? - Place the icons directly above the work area.
A lot of buttons and it is logical to place them on a common panel? - hide this panel behind the screen with the ability to pull it out with a slight gesture. You can even hide the panel automatically when it’s clear from the user's actions that he doesn’t need it now (for example, when he started scrolling the browser page - that means he is viewing the page and the control buttons are not relevant at the moment).
Gestures are the most convenient way to interact with the touch-screen. Feels like a slight movement with a finger (swipe) is perceived by an even simpler action than tapping the screen (tap).
The most convenient gestures are those that are generally not tied to a specific place on the screen or an element of the working area. The second convenience is gestures from one side of the screen, or gestures over a large element of the work area (for example, above a text block).
Controlling the application with flicks of your fingers anywhere on the screen - this is what gives you the feeling of an easy, careless, but at the same time accurate and responsive interaction with the application. Well, let you feel like a little wizard.
Speaking of magic. Another example of bringing magical ease and convenience to managing a work area is inertia. With a flick of your finger, you can scroll the browser page down, move around the map, view the gallery of pictures, stopping the movement at any time.
Apple players from the very first version of the system demonstrated the advantages of inertial dynamics for scrolling, so most developers added it to their lists, texts - wherever there is something to scroll. But as soon as it comes to moving the page in any direction - for some reason, the working area moves as much as you move it with your finger.
Help the user. Give him the opportunity to lightly push the page forward and stop touching the screen. The cards just came to this. And if I watch large images? What about drawing and designing applications? Finally turn on the big canvases and the inertia of movement in the drawers !!!
I will share a few more secrets that make applications seem more convenient and easier to use.
One of them is an understanding of user tasks and a sense of proportion in satisfying their desires. It is necessary to understand very clearly why people use your application and offer them the most convenient tool in your opinion for this. Not 15 different tools for the same (supposedly flexibility, yeah), not a tool with 128 settings of different parameters (they will only deal with this setting, it will not get to the point), but their own way to solve the problem. With a certain taste, you may well be able to create something that others will like.
The best applications have a small number of very well thought out, high-quality and properly tuned tools and fairly meager settings. Everything is done in order for the user to solve his tasks with the help of the proposed tools, and not to engage in their infinite customization and customization.
Well, finally got to the design. The interface does not interfere with the quality, a person’s desire to open the application again and again. The application should not only solve the user's problems well, but also deliver aesthetic pleasure to the person, which will add +1 to the inspiration and +2 to the performance.
Of course, the above principles are not universal recipes for all occasions. I'm sure there will be cases when the button is better than the svayp, when the control panel is most convenient to fix, shifting the working area, when the inertia can not provide sufficient accuracy of movement and will only interfere. The main thing in developing an application is to pay enough attention to convenient management and to think about the features of the environment in which it will run.
PS
If interested - I can write a sequel, with specific examples.
Especially acutely high-quality failure began to show itself with the advent of applications in which developers took into account the peculiarities of touch screen control, and made a bet on new ways of interaction. And immediately from all over the Internet, cries of “revolutionary design”, “innovative management”, and “convenient minimalistic interface” fell down.
Let's try to understand the intricacies of interaction with touch screens, and understand how to achieve such convenience and ease of control.
Unwarranted expectations
Before I got an iPad, I heard a lot of laudatory songs about Apple. The fact that they made a revolution by creating finger-oriented devices. About how convenient and beautiful iOs system is. About how they control their store, not allowing there low-quality applications. About how many people now use tablets instead of laptops to solve many of their everyday tasks. For work and hobby, for communication and entertainment.
')
And it’s not that I naively believed in all this, but I really wanted to see what was really happening in the tablet world. In the end, for sure in the three years of its existence, the developers have already written many applications that can be used not only for entertainment, but also for work or a hobby. Moreover, the way of interacting with the touching screen greatly expands the possibilities of managing the application, which means surely there are tools that, in principle, do not exist on desktops, with their unique way of interacting, with their unique capabilities.
And it seems to be yes. I found a lot of graphic artists, notebooks, planners, musical instruments, browsers, PCC readers, even a full-fledged vector editor, direct illustrator for the iPad. I downloaded, tried, downloaded more, tried, collecting my set of working tools. And in the end, he identified for himself the most interesting applications in which you can draw, design, write text, extract sounds and much more, but ...
How many inconvenient junk in appstore!
Applications that are really convenient to use - units. The rest either
What's the problem
The most important difference between tablets from desktops and laptops in the way of management. Working with the mouse on the desktops, we almost do not move our hand, and the cursor at the same time freely moves on the big screen. And then there's the scroll wheel right under your fingers.
With the tablet everything is different. We constantly have to move our hand across the screen to press something, move something, hold a finger somewhere. This is not as comfortable as moving the mouse, and it is extremely important for developers to find ways to minimize this inconvenience.
Another feature of the tablet, which the developers do not attach enough importance - a small screen area. Only 10 inches. Of the most common models of tablets is the maximum size. Let's imagine it next to a large and comfortable 20-inch something home monitor, on which so much you can fit. The tablet is two or even three times smaller. Judge for yourself - the screen is smaller, the accuracy of hitting is smaller, while managing the screen is constantly covered by hand, and the developers stubbornly continue to sculpt their interfaces from desktop solutions, not realizing that they no longer work as successfully here.
And here they are trying to fit on the screen workspace, controls, toolbars, so that everything was at hand, supposedly it is convenient when everything is at hand. And the screen is nothing. Even the working area stretched over the entire screen area is often insufficient for comfortable work, and here there is also panels, buttons, menus.
Need to do something about it
After studying the solutions used in a variety of applications, I came to the conclusion that it is quite possible to make work on a tablet comfortable. And I really wanted to collect these solutions and principles in one place, in the hope that the developers, if they don’t listen, will at least think about the features of the form factor and try to find the best solution.
There are only three key points:
- maximum working area
- gestures
- inertia
Consider them more closely.
Maximum working area
Everything is simple - we cannot stretch the tablet, it means that the only way out is to use the entire available screen area for the work area. All over! Without "but." There are no panels on the screen with buttons or with any information. The whole place for the most important, for which we have opened this application. We take this decision as a fundamental principle, and it remains for us to figure out how and where to locate the controls.
The options here are not so few.
We impose some basic actions on gestures. Just do not forget to show the screen with a description of these gestures when you first start.
Not enough gestures and nothing better than the buttons invented? - Place the icons directly above the work area.
A lot of buttons and it is logical to place them on a common panel? - hide this panel behind the screen with the ability to pull it out with a slight gesture. You can even hide the panel automatically when it’s clear from the user's actions that he doesn’t need it now (for example, when he started scrolling the browser page - that means he is viewing the page and the control buttons are not relevant at the moment).
Gestures
Gestures are the most convenient way to interact with the touch-screen. Feels like a slight movement with a finger (swipe) is perceived by an even simpler action than tapping the screen (tap).
The most convenient gestures are those that are generally not tied to a specific place on the screen or an element of the working area. The second convenience is gestures from one side of the screen, or gestures over a large element of the work area (for example, above a text block).
Controlling the application with flicks of your fingers anywhere on the screen - this is what gives you the feeling of an easy, careless, but at the same time accurate and responsive interaction with the application. Well, let you feel like a little wizard.
Inertia
Speaking of magic. Another example of bringing magical ease and convenience to managing a work area is inertia. With a flick of your finger, you can scroll the browser page down, move around the map, view the gallery of pictures, stopping the movement at any time.
Apple players from the very first version of the system demonstrated the advantages of inertial dynamics for scrolling, so most developers added it to their lists, texts - wherever there is something to scroll. But as soon as it comes to moving the page in any direction - for some reason, the working area moves as much as you move it with your finger.
Help the user. Give him the opportunity to lightly push the page forward and stop touching the screen. The cards just came to this. And if I watch large images? What about drawing and designing applications? Finally turn on the big canvases and the inertia of movement in the drawers !!!
Bonuses
I will share a few more secrets that make applications seem more convenient and easier to use.
One of them is an understanding of user tasks and a sense of proportion in satisfying their desires. It is necessary to understand very clearly why people use your application and offer them the most convenient tool in your opinion for this. Not 15 different tools for the same (supposedly flexibility, yeah), not a tool with 128 settings of different parameters (they will only deal with this setting, it will not get to the point), but their own way to solve the problem. With a certain taste, you may well be able to create something that others will like.
The best applications have a small number of very well thought out, high-quality and properly tuned tools and fairly meager settings. Everything is done in order for the user to solve his tasks with the help of the proposed tools, and not to engage in their infinite customization and customization.
Well, finally got to the design. The interface does not interfere with the quality, a person’s desire to open the application again and again. The application should not only solve the user's problems well, but also deliver aesthetic pleasure to the person, which will add +1 to the inspiration and +2 to the performance.
Well, all
Of course, the above principles are not universal recipes for all occasions. I'm sure there will be cases when the button is better than the svayp, when the control panel is most convenient to fix, shifting the working area, when the inertia can not provide sufficient accuracy of movement and will only interfere. The main thing in developing an application is to pay enough attention to convenient management and to think about the features of the environment in which it will run.
PS
If interested - I can write a sequel, with specific examples.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/172885/
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