ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Niklas Wenzel <nikwen.developer@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I've been ignoring this conversation for quite some time now because I 
believed (and still believe) in the abilities of the design team. Given 
that it has, however, been going for a week now, I'd like to add my two 
cents.

While I see the reason why one would like a few more gestures, I do not 
think it is a good addition for the mass for two reasons:

1) A lot of people I have shown off my Ubuntu Phone to were already 
confused by the 3 (or 4) gestures which are currently there. Adding 
more definitely wouldn't make that better.
2) Most times I do a swipe, I don't think about it. And that's only 
possible because I do not have to be careful about where I start the 
swipe.

To come to a conclusion, I strongly vote against adding more gestures.

Cheers,
Niklas

Am Di, 30. Jun, 2015 um 3:41 schrieb ubuntuphonefb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
> Hi all,
>
> I bought the BQ Aquaris E5 HD Ubuntu phone last week and the OS looks 
> great for still being in development. The loading times, WiFi (not 
> able to connect to my university's WiFi) and the browser could be a 
> bit improved, but overall it's already a robust and very useful OS.
>
> Ever since I took a few interaction design lectures during my studies 
> in computer science I'm thinking about how interactions could be 
> improved on modern devices/in apps. How you integrated the control 
> gestures (swiping over the screen borders) caught my eye immediately 
> and they are AWESOME. You should definitely extend this feature. It 
> has the potential to render home/menu buttons on the front obsolete 
> with ease in my opinion and thus leaving more space for the screen.
>
> You are currently using a whole border for one fixed widget (e.g. the 
> info center on top). I had the following idea how this could be 
> improved: Let's divide each border into multiple parts to get more 
> such interaction borders. A division of three parts on the long and 
> two on the short side should work well for most device sizes. With 
> this setup, there are ten possible places which could be used for 
> widgets.
>
> Ten is huge number for widgets. A few ideas which crossed my mind (* 
> == already exist):
> - system settings
> - app settings (both the app's own settings and system ones like 
> individual permissions/data/privacy/storage)
> - information center (battery, network, etc.) *
> - app quick-launcher *
> - app/scope menu *
> - switch open apps/scopes *
> - back action inside the app/scope
> - widgets provided by apps/scopes
> - or shortcuts to start user selected apps/scopes
>
> And there is still one slot left for a tenth widget. For a better 
> user experience, users should be able to configure which border part 
> provides which widget.
>
>
> I see several advantages in this approach:
> - The phone is customizable for left and right handed persons.
> - Users can improve the accessability for their own usage profile 
> (e.g. most used options at the bottom right).
> - More widgets can be directly accessed.
> - The interaction borders are still big enough to be robust against 
> inaccurate gestures. (To support extremely small/big devices the 
> division numbers could be user configurable too.)
> - With a good tutorial it would be easy enough for non-IT people to 
> learn the placement of these actions. (i.e. during a swipe-in show a 
> text hint for all other border actions while in tutorial mode. Leave 
> the choice to the user whether he wants to keep them displayed 
> afterwards.)
>
>
> I would love to see this widget idea being implemented. My personal 
> configuration would probably look kind of like
> http://imgur.com/tVqJn6n
>
> Now I'm curious to hear your thoughts and comments on this idea.
>
>
> Have a nice week,
> Serge
>
>
> PS If this is the wrong place to post this idea/feature request, 
> please tell me where I should post it instead.