ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Oliver Grawert <ogra@xxxxxxxxxx>]

hi,
Am Dienstag, den 25.03.2014, 08:35 -0700 schrieb Alex Chiang:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 3:48 AM, Oliver Grawert <ogra@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Does the Design team not try out the UI changes on a Nexus4 (4.7") or do
> > you guys all have extremely long thumbs ?
> 
> Opinions are cheap and the framing of this question presumes
> incompetence of the party with whom you're trying to effect change,
> which is not a very effective communication technique.
Well, i'm still asking if the design team regulary dogfoods the UI
changes they do and i think this is a valid question seeing this
change ... for which i did not get an answer ...

> Here's another opinion: back button in the upper left is a common,
> discoverable location across multiple pieces of software, such as web
> browsers and other mobile OSes; back button hidden in a menu at the
> bottom edge is insane.
I get that the iPhone has a button there but then the iPhone also is
small enough that you can reach this button while all devices we aim for
currently are not. Up to now i could use my phone with one hand, since
today i can not anymore. In fact Ubuntu Phone was the most pleasant
experience i ever had on a phone. Today i was several times so annoyed
that i wanted to smash it at a wall ...

How about keeping it at the bottom and simply *not* hide it, that would
make it as discoverable as on the top left but not force you to drop
your phone while trying to reach the unreachable button. Or use an
overlay arrow that becomes automatically visible once there is a "back"
action. I am pretty sure there are other options.

> 
> > Pretty please reconsider this, it makes using the phone an unpleasant
> > experience.
> 
> It's also unpleasant watching newcomers walk up to a booth at MWC and
> struggle to discover basic usability aspects of the phone, like how to
> navigate back.
Yeah, i agree that the old back button wasn't perfect, but it was usable
without dropping the phone (which i did two times already today while
angling for that button when walking and carrying something in my other
hand)

> 
> Agree with the change or not, the basic premise of your question
> shouldn't be about incompetence, but rather understanding the process
> that went into the change.
I didn't say anything about incompetence, please do not put such words
in my mouth, i know we have brilliant designers, else the rest of the
experience wouldn't be so awesome. I criticise the process though since
this change seems to not have been tested by anyone who tired to use a
Nexus4 phone with one hand (which IMHO is an essential feature of a
smart phone) for a day or two.

I kept the initial mail very opinionated and that is all it is, my
personal (and slightly annoyed) opinion, i would have written it
differently if i wanted to be cuddly and friendly like I usually am.

Note that i got a lot of feedback on IRC where people PMed me and
thanked me for bringing it up (it would probably have been nice if they
followed up to my mail instead, but I'm probably scaring away people
with my grumpyness about this issue, if so, sorry for that)

ciao
	oli

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