ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Sam Bull <sam.hacking@xxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 2013-06-12 at 14:07 +0100, Lou Greenwood wrote:
> Email
> Calendar
> Todo app
> Settings
> Contacts
> Phone
> Messages

OK, so phone doesn't use the back button.

If contacts used the same design as the people lens (which is
practically the same thing anyway) it wouldn't use a back button.

I don't think you are likely to be backing out of messages often, so
it's not a *frequent* use in messages. The most common use would be,
receive notification, click to open message to see it in context, close
messages. I don't think you would back out to all messages that
frequently.

System settings is something I think would benefit from the visible by
default design.

Todo app is entirely dependent on design, the notes app doesn't use a
back button, which is the closest thing to a todo app right now.

Calendar app only has a back button if you view details of an event,
which again I don't think is a frequent thing.

Email hasn't been started, but I would expect a visible by default when
viewing an email, which would include not just back, but also reply,
trash etc.


One thing that seems to keep being mentioned, is that the back button is
difficult to find. Moving the back button doesn't help, as pretty much
ALL controls for ALL apps are hidden in the same space. If people don't
know that they need to swipe to access the controls, moving the back
button only makes it less likely they will discover the rest of the
controls.

Atleast if they are stuck on a page, they are forced to learn where the
controls are by finding the back button. Once they've done this once,
they will know how to find the controls for every app.

The point of hiding these controls, is to give more screen estate to the
app, instead of using it to display buttons which are not frequently
used.

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