ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Robert Bruce Park <robert.park@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On 13-03-15 11:57 AM, Michał Sawicz wrote:
> In the shell we managed to stay away from "if (tablet) this; elif 
> (phone) that" in favour of differentiating based on available
> space.

Excellent.

> * click-through notifications - only when there’s a pointer device
> - *not* whether it’s a desktop or a phone

Ok, but I think it's a bad idea to start writing code that looks like
"if (mouse) allow_click; elif (touch) allow_swipe"

I think ideally you should just create the widget such that it can
reasonably sanely interact with both a mouse and a touchscreen at the
same time (ie, it knows what to do when it gets clicked on, AND it
knows what to do when a finger swipes over it on the touchscreen). In
this way, you can simply render the identical widget on all possible
form factors (convergence!) and then regardless of what input devices
the user happens to actually have, we end up behaving The Right Way.

> * directional navigation - only when there’s means of that
> navigation - a keyboard or a remote - *not* whether it’s a phone or
> a tv

Again, don't do things "only when there's a means". Provide all input
options simultaneously and then the user will simply choose whichever
one is the easiest to use given the input devices that they have
access to. I think this can be done in a very seamless and transparent
way -- eg, a button will look identical whether you are expecting it
to be clicked on, touch-tapped on, keyboard-navigated to, or TV remote
selected... and regardless of which input device is used to activate
the button, the button activation will be identical anyway.

Another example, any kind of list that you might want to scroll
through, should at all times accept arrow-key navigation, and also
touch swipe dragging, and also mouse-wheel scrolling, etc. Whichever
one the user happens to use will work quite naturally, and the other
options that the user might not have access too are harmlessly ignored.

One thing you really have to consider is that there's going to be a
million different unpredictable combinations here -- maybe somebody
has a desktop PC, but it's hooked up to a data projector and they have
an IR receiver so they can use a TV remote with their PC. So maybe
this user has a keyboard, and a mouse, and a TV remote, but no
touchscreen. Or maybe the user has a touchscreen laptop, but they also
have a mouse plugged in. Or maybe they have a tablet with a bluetooth
keyboard ;-)

So what I'm trying to say is, you won't possibly be able to predict
and special-case every combination of input devices. Best to just
allow all input devices to work at all times, and then the user can
just use whatever comes naturally to them.

> I hate to see "tablet, phone, desktop, TV" differentiation when
> we're trying to have a converged platform. We need, all of us, to
> work with a more holistic approach.

I agree ;-)
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