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| This is the sort of stuff you think about when you design user interfaces | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 17 2012, 10:19 AM (201 Views) | |
| Horace | Mar 17 2012, 10:19 AM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I just upgraded my iPhone to the latest OS. In some recent version before it, they'd added a convenient way to get to the camera quickly from the "sleep" state. Normally, you'd have to hit the "home" button, slide the "unlock" slider left to right across the screen, punch in your pass code if you have one, then finally select the camera app. That was pretty cumbersome, and often people see something they want an immediate picture of. So Apple added a "cam" button which appeared on the "unlock" screen if you double-clicked the home button rather than just single clicked. It worked ok. In this newest version, they did some more thinking about that. Now, when you press the home button, you get a screen very similar to what you used to get with the double-click - the unlock slider along with the cam button. But the cam button is different now. It's not really a button. It has the same "camera" icon on it, but when you press it, the screen lifts up a centimeter or so, revealing what is obviously the camera app behind it. Then the screen falls back down and settles over the whole display again. The animation takes about a second. To get to the camera app, the user does the intuitive thing - press the cam button and drag the screen upwards, finishing what the cute little animation started. The whole screen rolls up and the camera app becomes available. So I figure this was the thought process: too few people knew about the double-click thing, so this convenient functionality for getting to the cam may as well not have existed. They wanted to make it more obvious, because it was important. So they put it on the normal "unlock" screen. But that "unlock" screen is used to display lots of important information that people often want at a glance - time, battery status, 3g status, etc. People are always hitting the home button once to see it, then putting the phone back into their pocket. That's where they're likely to accidentally hit a button, so you can't put a button on that screen. That's the reason why the unlock slider is just that - a slider. It's much harder to accidentally press, hold, and drag something across the screen. Back when the camera access button was only available from a double-click on the home button, it could be a button because the double-click on the home button (not easy to do accidentally) indicated intent from the user. So now that the camera access gadget is on that default home screen, it's a slider. And Apple's "documentation" of it is just that little animation that happens when the user initially thinks it's a button. I thought it was pretty interesting. A lot of thought goes into making user interfaces that don't require any thought from the user. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Horace | Mar 17 2012, 10:20 AM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Wow, that's way too long. Conciseness fail. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Mikhailoh | Mar 17 2012, 11:08 AM Post #3 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Indeed. Designing intuitive interfaces is pretty rare these days. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| George K | Mar 17 2012, 11:34 AM Post #4 |
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Finally
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Let me tell you about Cerner....
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Mikhailoh | Mar 17 2012, 11:36 AM Post #5 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Oh, I see it all the time. More of a Rubik's Cube than an interface. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| George K | Mar 17 2012, 11:39 AM Post #6 |
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Finally
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Did you notice you can slide that camera widget up sloooowly? |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Horace | Mar 17 2012, 11:55 AM Post #7 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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That's pretty cool, the camera app behind it gets brighter and brighter as you slide the "door" up, like you're gradually letting in light. And the animation that bounces up and back down when you press the cam widget like a button looks very natural too, like gravity and elasticity. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Copper | Mar 17 2012, 11:57 AM Post #8 |
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Shortstop
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Here is something else they thought about. They offer you the update on the iPad and iPhone - no charge great - do it. Then you go to use your XCode for development and it no longer sees the iPad or iPhone. You need the upgrade for XCode - no charge great. Wait! The upgrade for XCode needs a new OS - Lion - gotcha. This is how I spent my morning, and experienced some of the normal new system nonsense. Good thinking. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| Aqua Letifer | Mar 17 2012, 06:47 PM Post #9 |
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ZOOOOOM!
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Jailbroken devices have had this ability for awhile now. In fact, you're able with a jailbroken iPhone to set ANY input action to perform a task. Any input action. You can answer an incoming call by plugging in your headphones if you wanted to. Makes it nice for tailoring the buttons to what you want them to do. |
| I cite irreconcilable differences. | |
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