Showing posts with label UX. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UX. Show all posts

Tablet developer: allow full Website access, or do your homework.

There is nothing more frustraiting to people spending $500 to $800 on a new shiny tablet to find out that your app tries to "enhance" your user experience by providing 3 inch phone functionality.
The full-size, mobile safe, site would work quite nice on the tablet, especially with ability to pinch and pan to get to the particular section.
Going a step further, which is actually not that much extra work, is to provide the comfortable experience taking advantage of the vaste real estate of the tablet.
The other day I was comparing Android Gmail applications between 4, 7, and 10 inch screens. The 10 inch was done in nice 2 column layout with small fonts which made easy to view my email content. The 7 inch was nothing, but blown up small phone app, with huge fonts as if Google was assuming all Galaxy Tab 7 users were vision impaired.
The small screen Gmail app wasted a lot of screen with big buttons in editing mode, buttons that should have been in menu with better, more beautiful iconography, I am sure users would learn to press menu really quickly.
Even the Blogger app I am using now has several buttons that take screen space. I assume that Blogger app is used very frequently, so it should be designed for frequent users, too.



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Search button & Voice Commands

The search button is gone, so much for idea of everyone using "voice commands".

I tried voice commands for a while but honestly I never liked the idea --  it annoys people around you, and it is as difficult as selecting by hand while driving - which of course I never do.

 More and more manufactures are not including the physical SEARCH button, and it looks like Google gave up on the idea in apps like Market where the search magnifying-glass icon is prominently on top. Also, the Android 3+ tablets are missing all the physical buttons, which I personally miss a lot. Samsung Galaxy 7 tablet has all 4 buttons, but Galaxy 10.1 already does not have any.

I think as the voice recognition improves the button may come back, but for now only simple commands work and Google Voice mailbox is sometimes comical, everyone call me and says "Hello Auntie!"




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