[HN Gopher] iPhones and action discoverability ___________________________________________________________________ iPhones and action discoverability Author : otras Score : 186 points Date : 2022-09-24 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (alexanderell.is) (TXT) w3m dump (alexanderell.is) | dawiddr wrote: | Well, the screen estate on a mobile device is limited, so the | number of actions that are easy to discover needs to be limited | too - otherwise the UI would be cluttered. I find Apple good at | balancing this. Notice how actions that he mentions are just | quicker alternatives to stuff that one can already do in another | way. | yccs27 wrote: | This seems crucial to me - most of these 'nondiscoverable' | actions are shortcuts, and there is another discoverable way to | achieve the same outcome. They are similar to keyboard | shortcuts in that way, they just help power users who know | them. | | (The calculator backspace seems to be an exception, which is | why I also dislike it.) | lcuff wrote: | Not 'just' quicker. Easier. Less frustrating. Important | elements. This is my experience of using the long-spacebar | technique for placing the cursor. | | Digressing: An AI noticing that someone has moved the cursor | several time without ever typing anything could pop up a "Want | me to show you other ways to move the cursor?" dialog, and | teach the 'hard to discover' technique. I await the day ... | jonchang wrote: | Sounds like a rebranding of the much-reviled Clippy. | lcuff wrote: | I never used Clippy. Reviled? You mean Microsoft took the | idea of 'context appropriate useful suggestions' and | bungled the user interface? Inconceivable! | servercobra wrote: | AI Clippy! | rajeshr wrote: | The Calculator app could suggest that I can swipe on the | display at the top if it notices that I'm using 'C' often. | This would not even need an AI. I wonder if there are UI | frameworks that support the detection and suggestion of | "better" actions? | ncann wrote: | That excuse doesn't hold for the calculator example, where the | 0 button takes up 2 spaces for no good reason, and they could | easily added a backspace button instead. | hk__2 wrote: | > That excuse doesn't hold for the calculator example, where | the 0 button takes up 2 spaces for no good reason, and they | could easily added a backspace button instead. | | It would be a really weird place for a backspace button and | you would always tap on it by mistake. | adastra22 wrote: | The last two are pretty obvious to me. The first two are brand | new to me and very undiscoverable though! | amelius wrote: | Yes, for the first two you have to think like a UI designer. | | Do UI designers think that everybody would be good at their | job? | Gigachad wrote: | HN users think they would do better than the experts in any | field. | layer8 wrote: | > Going back after opening a new Safari tab | | I like this feature, but what annoys me is that unlike the | regular use of Back, you can't Forward to undo the Back in that | situation, even in the common case that the original tab is at | the top of the history (i.e. has no current Forward target of its | own). | NaOH wrote: | >unlike the regular use of Back, you can't Forward to undo the | Back in that situation.... | | If you've enabled Shake To Undo in | Settings>Accessibility>Touch, then you can undo/reopen the | closed tab. | layer8 wrote: | Right, but the reopened tab doesn't restore to the previous | scroll position as Forward does, and the tab also cannot be | closed by Back anymore, both meaning that it isn't a true | Undo. These are just more inconsistencies. The problem is | that iOS is full of such smaller and bigger inconsistencies. | | Another thing that annoys me is when you open a new tab via | _Look Up_ > _Search Web_ (which in a sense is quite similar | to opening a link in a new tab), then that new tab cannot be | closed by Back. | | I wish Apple would spend a year or two in streamlining all | that stuff. | robinson-wall wrote: | I can forgive the URL bar swipe to change between tabs, because | there is a visual cue that the other tabs are there - the URL | bars of the adjacent tabs peek onto the screen. | 1-6 wrote: | Data centers hate this one neat trick: | | The best one is the kinetic (inertial) scrubbing they brought to | videos on iOS 16. For example, open a YT video from Safari (don't | open on the YouTube app), go full screen and the flick to scroll | backwards and forwards! I bet we'll all consume more data as a | result of this UI addition. I certainly use the YT mobile web | version as a result. | glacials wrote: | These features aren't nondiscoverable; discovery just takes place | outside the operating system, in communities like this one. Good | designers know that communities are a constant of the power user | UX just like a settings menu or instruction manual. You don't | have to pollute the UI with hints and copy about every little | thing because power users are their own discovery engines. | shepherdjerred wrote: | > Good designers know that communities are a constant of the | power user UX | | Maybe power users are a part of those communities because they | can't figure out how to use your product in the first place? | _thisdot wrote: | What I find most annoying in iOS UX is how much information is | tucked behind the "Share" icon. Having to click the share button | to access "Find on Page" is super unintuitive. | yieldcrv wrote: | and this keeps changing too! | | in Safari, things constantly switch between the Share icon, and | the "Aa" menu in the URL bar! | aeharding wrote: | The share button also has actions that vary unnecessarily. | | For example, in SFSafariViewController there is no "add to home | screen" button, but in actual safari there is. Despite them | both being web view experiences controlled entirely by Apple. | | (And you can't detect SFSafariViewController vs Safari as a web | app, so good luck onboarding users for your PWA.) | dnissley wrote: | You can also just type in the url bar to find on page (also | super unintuitive) | PNWChris wrote: | To add insult to injury, sometimes the share sheet is really, | really slow! Like several seconds with no UI feedback to | indicate anything is going on! That's quite frustrating when I | want to quickly invoke my password manager or search on page. | | I agree, the share sheet is just too confusing. Favorites | management, my password manager, air drop, texting, find on | page, and the kitchen sink are all in there and are quite | undiscoverable if you don't know to look for them. | | To add some confusion on top of that, some features and | extensions go in the similarly un-discoverable "aA" button in | the URL bar, so it's not even like everything goes in the share | sheet. That button is really tough to remember even exists | since it goes away when you scroll. | tomjen3 wrote: | Agreed. | | Photos have an option to mark photos as hidden, so they won't | show up in random places. | | Its meant to be for more sensitive photos. | | If you want to mark a picture as hidden, yep, its under the | share icon. | fizwidget wrote: | This was thankfully fixed in iOS 16. The "hide" option is now | in the triple-dot menu in the top right corner. | tuukkah wrote: | And they used to ridicule Windows for hiding Shut down in the | Start menu... | layer8 wrote: | You don't have to use Share for Find on Page. Just type in the | address bar, then "On this Page" will be the bottom option. | Obviously, that doesn't seem to be sufficiently discoverable as | well. | Gigachad wrote: | It is a general pattern that the share menu is the collection | of everything that didn't justify its own icon. | robocat wrote: | Have you looked at Apple's Shortcuts App that allows some | customisation of the share actions? e.g. that is the way to run | JavaScript snippets in a web page on Mobile Safari (equivalent | to javascript: bookmark urls in desktop browsers). I've only | tried it on iPad, but I presume it works the same on iPhone (it | would be unobvious if it didn't). | | The Shortcuts App is the way to access some deep and very | unobvious functionality. | wgx wrote: | A factor in all of this is how familiar we get with our phones. | | An app or website we only use once a week or once a month needs | to be more obvious and discoverable than the iPhone we pick up | 100 times per day. | at_a_remove wrote: | I was very late to the smartphone game, transitioning somewhat | suddenly from a Nokia to an iPhone SE. I found the | discoverability to be against everything I was taught as a | programmer. It really felt like I was expected to have grown up | with the iPhone from the first generation. | | Worse yet, the _gestures_ ... I searched in vain for a decent | printable sheet of the commonly used gestures, only to make my | own set of diagrams for an iPad I tried to get my mother to use, | leaving her with a set of laminated sheets: the green one | detailing the parts of the iPad, the red sheet showing the | different screens and how to get there, and finally a blue one | with the gestures. | | I think iOS really needs a "Tutorial mode" app bundled with it. | This of course requires that someone resist the temptation to | interject with all of the bundled apps that Apple wants you to | know about but aren't needed to do the basics. No Focus, no | Stocks, no Apple TV ... just show me how to get around in some | Settings, practice locking and unlocking a screen, drills for | _all_ of the basic gestures. | hk__2 wrote: | > I think iOS really needs a "Tutorial mode" app bundled with | it. | | Another commenter on this thread writes that there is an on- | boarding process that was introduced with the iPhone X: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32966383 | simonswords82 wrote: | When I tell people about the long press spacebar feature they | react like I've changed their (mobile) lives. | stonegray wrote: | The long-press spacebar wasn't even really a great design, it | was a hack to replace an older, better feature. | | iPhones prior to the iPhone 11 used to be able to sense the | pressure you touched with on the display, and a firm touch had | a ton of neat but hard to discover user interactions, from | previewing links in safari without opening them to preventing | accidentally hitting the flashlight on the lockscreen on X/XS | by requiring a bit of pressure. | | One of the best (imo) features was the ability to move the | cursor in any direction by dragging firmly _anywhere on the | keyboard_. No delay, no press and hold, just instant access to | a cursor. The new "haptic touch" way of doing this makes it | difficult if not impossible to scroll down, and needing to | press and hold ensures it will always be slower. | | 20 second video demo of how it used to work: | https://youtu.be/XlcCgiYF2Fs?t=25 | gnicholas wrote: | In my experience (on an iPhone 7 Plus), the hard-press still | involved a small delay, so the new long-tap isn't that much | different. They may have optimized this in newer versions of | the phone, but I jumped from a 7 to an 11 and thought it | wasn't that bad. I didn't like the original version because | the delay left me wondering if I'd pressed hard enough or not | waited long enough for it to activate. | cyral wrote: | I really miss the haptic touch features. The flashlight one | was particularly cool because you could instantly enable it | by just clicking it like you'd click on an actual flashlight | (usually the on button requires some pressure). Now it's an | awkward half second delay that is still hard to discover and | now feels less natural. | romwell wrote: | >One of the best (imo) features was the ability to move the | cursor in any direction by dragging firmly anywhere on the | keyboard. | | Must be tons of fun to use with Swipe-type input (aka Flow, | etc) | cyral wrote: | You really had to press hard to get it to happen. iOS has | also natively had swipe input for a while now (not sure if | it was at the same time though) | svendahlstrand wrote: | The Back Tap feature is my favorite "hidden" action on the | iPhone. You can double (or triple) tap the back of the phone to | trigger whatever action you want. For example, toggle the | flashlight or lock rotation. Show Spotlight or run a Shortcut. | | https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/back-tap-iphaa57e7885... | | I think Apple does a decent job telling people about iOS features | across the User Guide, Tips.app, and the Apple Support YouTube | channel. | | The "undiscoverable" features in the article are all there. | | _Delete the last digit: If you make a mistake when you enter a | number, swipe left or right on the display at the top._ | | https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/calculator-iph1ac0b5c... | | _Turn the onscreen keyboard into a trackpad._ | | _1. Touch and hold the Space bar with one finger until the | keyboard turns light gray._ | | _2. Move the insertion point by dragging around the keyboard._ | | https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-with-the-onscree... | | _To access other open tabs, you can swipe left or right on the | tab bar._ | | https://youtu.be/30tfnCxLWSg?t=21 | inetknght wrote: | > _The Back Tap feature is my favorite "hidden" action on the | iPhone._ | | Too bad it's undiscoverable. I would never have thought about | trying to double or especially triple tab some button that | isn't even visible for most interactions. | | > _I think Apple does a decent job telling people about iOS | features across the User Guide, Tips.app, and the Apple Support | YouTube channel._ | | Nonsense. | | What "User Guide"? | | Tips.app? You mean that piece of trash that tells me a bunch of | useless noise? | | Apple Support Youtube Channel? I have to use a competitor's | product to learn about the iPhone? | | > _Delete the last digit: If you make a mistake when you enter | a number, swipe left or right on the display at the top._ | | So I have to move my fingers from the keyboard at the bottom of | the screen to some imaginary place at the top of the screen? | It's hard enough getting the damn phone to understand a | left/right swipe instead of an up/down swipe! | shepherdjerred wrote: | This is a very low-effort comment that is trying to disagree | with the parent in every way possible. | | I'm guessing that you just don't like Apple, which is fine, | but the way that you're disagreeing isn't particularly | useful. | | It would be constructive if you at least posted a comparison | of how Android (or your favorite phone maker) does it better, | or even what you'd improve. | | > What "User Guide"? | | The parent linked to it in their comment, here's the home | page: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/welcome/ios | | > Tips.app? You mean that piece of trash that tells me a | bunch of useless noise? | | The first thing I do when setting up iOS is delete the stock | apps, including Tips.app. I just downloaded it to see what it | actually is, and flipped through it for a few minutes. | | I'm not sure what useless noise you're referring to. After | going through the app, it contains a very good list of things | to know about using an iPhone, such as how to navigate, how | to set up features like Medical ID and use Emergency SOS, as | well as personalize your iPhone will wallpapers, sounds, font | sizes, etc. | | Tips does a very good job of not being information overload | -- there are 5 sections under "Get Started", with each | section having a 5-10 short sentences about each feature. It | also contains a link to the full iPhone User Guide. | | There's no upselling or suggesting that you buy some | subscription in the app, nor any ads. I'm not sure what you | have against this app, even someone who's had an iPhone for a | while will probably learn one new thing after spending 5-10 | minutes in it. | | > Apple Support Youtube Channel? I have to use a competitor's | product to learn about the iPhone? | | This is ridiculous. | | > So I have to move my fingers from the keyboard at the | bottom of the screen to some imaginary place at the top of | the screen? It's hard enough getting the damn phone to | understand a left/right swipe instead of an up/down swipe! | | You're switching from the topic of discoverability to Apple | makes poor features. | [deleted] | shepherdjerred wrote: | Wow, these are great! The back tap feature seems really handy, | and it even worked with my case on. I guess they're doing it by | sensing phone movement/rotation rather than some sort of touch | sensor on the back. | joezydeco wrote: | The accelerometer (the one that knows your phone is rotated) | is watching in three dimensions. | | A tap on the back looks like a very brief acceleration on the | axis coming out of the screen. Like a reverse free-fall. | code_biologist wrote: | * 2. Move the insertion point by dragging around the keyboard.* | | Anyone know how to go down doing this? Left, right, and up are | all good, but I can't figure out how to go down consistently. | The 1.5mm below the space bar is really fiddly. | kccqzy wrote: | What do you do when you are using a traditional laptop | trackpad, you're dragging an item downward but your finger is | already at the bottom of the trackpad? | | (Hint: the amount the cursor moves does not only depend on | the dragged distance on the trackpad.) | | Now do the same thing for the on-screen virtual trackpad. | girvo wrote: | You don't have to keep within the keyboard once you've got | the insertion bar thing on screen and in your control. | | You can whip it upwards to the top of the screen which then | gives you the entire screen to scroll down (precisely). | faitswulff wrote: | I've found this to be nearly useless in practice because it | fails to register the back taps accurately enough to be | reliable. | Gigachad wrote: | Which is probably why Apple isn't pushing hard for everyone | to know about it. | [deleted] | renewiltord wrote: | What's the recording app that shows the cursor movement? The | built in recorded only shows taps and scrolls right? | otras wrote: | I actually cheated and used the built-in recorder with an | external mouse (I somehow had a USB->Lightning adapter on | hand). You can then, in the Accessibility settings, enable an | always visible cursor under Pointer Control, though Pointer | Control is only visible _after_ you have the mouse plugged in. | Ironic to have such iOS struggles for a post about iOS | struggles... | filoleg wrote: | > The built in recorded only shows taps and scrolls right? | | Click on options in the built-in one, there is a "show mouse | pointer" check you can click. Here is how it looks[0]. | | 0. https://static1.makeuseofimages.com/wordpress/wp- | content/upl... | thih9 wrote: | > I don't think any of these are intuitive or easily | discoverable. | | Then again, perhaps they don't need to be universally intuitive / | discoverable; i.e.: the users who need these features may | instinctively search for them and eventually discover them. | | Anecdotally, I've been able to discover three out of four actions | mentioned in the article (the fourth one was about the calculator | app, which I don't use that often). | culopatin wrote: | What does anyone have to gain by making it a quest to find | these features? It doesn't benefit the user who found them | anyway and obviously doesn't help the user who didn't find | them. Does it make you part of a UX VIP club to find them? | thih9 wrote: | The benefit is that the app ends up being simpler. | | The users who don't need these features don't have to know | about them, don't have to click through tutorials, or be | pestered by hints. | romwell wrote: | >The users who don't need these features don't have to know | about them, don't have to click through tutorials, or be | pestered by hints. | | Welcome to the new iCalculator! | | To simplify your experience, the only operator button is | "+", which now takes half of the screen, and is therefore | easy to find and press, _adding_ to the pleasure of using | the calculator. | | You might ask, where's the "-" button? Was it stupid to | remove it? No, it's _brave_! Don 't be so _negative_ about | it; our UX studies show that "+" is statistically the most | used button, and so your needs don't matter. | | If you need to subtract, swipe "+" button down; to | multiply, swipe "+" right, and to divide, swipe "+" down. | Swipe "+" up to raise to an exponent. | | To quickly square numbers, hold "+", then perform a | _square_ gesture clockwise aronud the button. To take a | square root, perform it in reverse. | | You may notice that we have removed the digit buttons as | well. That's because you don't need to type the numbers in | - just say them out loud! Swipe the screen diagonally from | the bottom left corner to the top right one to activate | voice input. | | _Note_ : digit buttons can still be enabled from the | accessibility options in the system dialog. | | _Note 2_ : voice recognition of operators is coming in a | future upgrade. | | To clear your input, you can simply restart the app, no | buttons needed. | | _Note 3_ : you can enable a haptic shortcut in system | acessibility settings: "Clear input by shaking phone". | | Finally, you can read this instruction manual by | telepathically tuning into the lead engineer's mind, as | it's not available anywhere else. | | Enjoy your intuitive iExperience! | gnicholas wrote: | Who has ever used a calculator and hasn't needed a | backspace key? This is not an unnecessary feature that can | be hidden behind an unguessable UI. | | I wonder if anyone knows when this gesture was introduced. | Has it been there since the beginning? I've had an iPhone | since the day they came out, have watched most iPhone | announcements and WWDC keynotes, and I had no idea about | this gesture. I wonder how many Apple Geniuses are aware of | it. | massysett wrote: | I have never needed this. If I make a mistake, use the C | button, just like old-style pocket calculators. | | PCalc has a backspace button, along with a bunch of other | buttons making it more complicated than the iPhone | calculator. It makes sense that Apple kept it simple with | just a C/AC button. | romwell wrote: | >Then again, perhaps they don't need to be | | Yeah, who'd need a _delete_ button on calculator? | | Simpler is better! Long press the "+" button to access advanced | features, like "*". | stingraycharles wrote: | > the users who need these features may instinctively search | for them and eventually discover them | | I discovered the "space bar allows you to move the cursor | around" hack through a friggin' TikTok video only a few weeks | ago. My mind was blown; never did I realize I needed a feature | this much, I always thought it was just my fat thumbs that were | the problem. | | My wife was equally blown away. | | Some may consider me an idiot for not discovering this earlier | or googling this, but seriously, I just never realized there | could be a better way and was always blaming my fat thumbs. I | just thought other people never had this problem. | | The discoverability of this feature sucks. | ice3 wrote: | I'd also add - double tapping the top of the screen to scroll to | the top. | jeffbee wrote: | That, I believe, is just a single tap. | ice3 wrote: | Huh, I always assumed it's a double tap, and I've been using | iPhones sines 4, but just checked and it's a single tap. | | Talk about action discoverability. | janaagaard wrote: | The article argues that blue text is obviously a clickable link, | but that swiping from the left to navigate back isn't. While I do | think it makes a difference that the link is visually different, | I also think that what is affordable or discoverable is | ultimately a subjective thing. You could argue that for anyone | born in this millennia, swiping down to refresh is just as | intuitive that blue text being clickable. | knolan wrote: | I've found watching the WWDC keynotes where they announce a new | version of iOS or MacOS a good way to learn many of the new | gestures and features. | | For your average user many of these features will remain hidden | and I suspect that's partially by design. They want such users to | have a simple experience. | irrational wrote: | Huh, I've been using an iPhone since the very first one. This is | the first time I've ever seen any of these actions. I had no | idea. | arthurofbabylon wrote: | I fail to see the flaw here. When catering to large groups of | diverse people, I don't expect homogenous use of a product. | Everyone should be able to find their own high-value solutions | within a product, according to their real needs. | | We could call the presented paradigm needs-based discovery. | | It inherently means that some people won't be aware of solutions | that benefit others - that is, until their need or exposure | evolves. And that is okay. More than okay, it's great. To return | to the basics... people don't like being inundated with features | they don't want and they do like discovering solutions to | problems. | | This is excellent design. | | Could those features be better presented? Always. | | The iPhone interface has an incredible array of constraints: it | needs to serve literally every type of person on the planet. | That's beautiful. I have huge respect for designers capable of | connecting with such diverse stakeholders. It is masterful design | in the most pure sense. | iforgotpassword wrote: | It's a little ironic how at the advent of the iPhone, the desktop | os was mocked as being clunky and full of those things you just | have to know, rather than being discoverable. The iPhone was | limited and simple. And it really helped adoption of smartphones. | Now it's assumed everybody is already familiar with smartphones | and welcomes yet another shortcut or gesture to make usage | quicker. Take Android and the removal of the three buttons at the | bottom, in exchange for some gestures. Just so the interface | looks cleaner. Imagine someone who has never used a smartphone | before would be starting out with that. Just hand them the phone | and see how long it takes them to return to the home screen after | opening the first app. | | Not to say this is good or bad, just an observation mostly. | mcculley wrote: | The iPhone got some undeserved credit for being intuitive just | because it was so limited. It did not even have copy/paste. | Even now, it is far from obvious how to use undo (tap with | three fingers). It's when there are many features that great | UI/UX designers shine. | shp0ngle wrote: | I thought undo is "violently shake the phone" | rejectfinite wrote: | I still always turn on the bottom 3 button on Android phones. | Just easier than remembering gestures. | nightfly wrote: | First thing I did on my new phone was put those dots back... | jeroenhd wrote: | I like the way Xiaomi enabled gestures on my phone. The default | was the three button layout, with the option to switch to | gestures. The moment you enable gestures, you get a little | interactive tutorial on how to use them so you don't get | confused. | i80and wrote: | The removal of the three dots completely throws me for a loop. | I simply could not get the gestures to stick in my brain. And | not to sound entitled, but... I shouldn't have to? | | Anyway I'm ride or die for the three dots and am pretty worried | they'll kill off the option to bring them back. | saiya-jin wrote: | I don't use gestures, never had, if possible never will. | Phone works 100% fine for me as it is (samsung s22 ultra), i | am as efficient with it as I want and need. Whatever works | for you is how you should use the product. | | Plus, lets not be pathetic with wasting life on phone, real | life happens outside screens. Its good to keep reminding | oneself this little truth regardless how shiny new gimmicks | manufacturers bring to keep us glued to their products and | ad-based services. | nfw2 wrote: | The actions listed in the article are fairly non-essential, but | many fundamental iOS functions also have discoverability issues, | as well as some head-scratching design choices. For example: | | - seeing notifications requires swiping down specifically from | the top left | | - turning on the flashlight requires swiping down specifically | from the top right. Swiping down from top left also gets you a | flashlight button, but it is not actionable. The flashlight | button on the home screen is also not actionable. | | - universal search requires swiping to the left of the app pages. | Swiping past the right end of the app pages also gets you a | search bar, but it will only show you apps | | - Seeing your open apps requires swiping up slowly from the | bottom of the page. | | - turning the phone off requires holding two unrelated buttons | | Mobile UX generally is heavily-dependent on gestures, which | inherently creates discoverability challenges, but it seems like | Apple goes out of its way to hide every basic function behind a | very specific swipe. It makes me wonder if they intentionally | design their products to be exclusively usable by tech-savvy | people. | | Another possible explanation is that design requires users to | develop muscle memory over time that will improve experience in | the long run and makes competitors feel unnatural. | hk__2 wrote: | > - seeing notifications requires swiping down specifically | from the top left | | Not really, swiping from anywhere on the top (except top-right) | works. This is consistent with the other gestures: swipe up | from the lock screen to unlock it (just like you would open a | roller shutter); swipe down to lock it again -- and see the | notifications. You can also simply hit the side button. | | > - turning on the flashlight requires swiping down | specifically from the top right | | You can turn it on from the lock screen, as others have pointed | out. | | > - turning the phone off requires holding two unrelated | buttons | | Yes, so that you don't turn it off by mistake. Smartphones are | not devices you turn on and off; outside of OS updates they | stay on forever. | | > It makes me wonder if they intentionally design their | products to be exclusively usable by tech-savvy people. | | I would say the opposite. When I think of tech-savy people, I | think about mouse and keyboard; when I think of non-tech-savy | ones, I think about tactile displays and gestures (and voice). | | My 92-yo grandfather barely knows how to make his printer work | but has no trouble remembering the most common swipe gestures: | it's hard to forget about pinch to zoom or swipe down to | 'close' the phone and swipe up to 'open' it again. | fiddlerwoaroof wrote: | > The flashlight button on the home screen is also not | actionable. | | The button is actionable, it just takes a long press to avoid | accidental activation. | romwell wrote: | Great, add that to the list of undiscoverable and incoherent | design choices in the OP's comment. | mmiyer wrote: | All those flashlight buttons are actionable, you just need to | press and hold. I suppose this proves a point about | discoverability. | ceeplusplus wrote: | I think many of these are inherently poweruser features though. | Most non tech-savvy people will rarely have to turn off their | phone or clear their open apps (really if the memory eviction | system is good this shouldn't even be a concern). | | Some of the other stuff you mentioned is discoverable in my | opinion. Swiping down from home gives you a search bar. | Notifications being accessible by swiping down from the left is | admittedly not as good as swiping down from the top bar in the | older iPhones, but I think still more discoverable than the | Windows notification system that requires you to click a | button. | layer8 wrote: | From time to time you need to reboot the phone to get some | nonworking app or system function unstuck. I regularly have | to guide family members to reboot their phone or tablet, and | have to google each time which button combination has to be | pressed on the particular iPhone or iPad model. | nfw2 wrote: | Turning off the phone is useful if you are low on power and | don't have a way to charge. I do this sometimes when | traveling or in the city. | | When I go through open apps, it is usually to get back to | something I was doing, rather than to clear it. Finding what | you were just looking at 2 seconds ago shouldn't be | considered a power user feature. | JKCalhoun wrote: | I suspect that designers are tasked with too many features on | too small of a device. On a desktop with a mouse + keyboard | there is a potential for so many shortcuts ... you have to get | much more creative on a touch-only device. | | I don't endorse it however. I think pop-up menus (even the much | maligned hamburger) are at least a way to make many more | features discoverable. I dislike "gestures". | Gigachad wrote: | I think this constraint actually created some of the best UI | ever. Desktop designers had gotten lazy and just stacked tool | bar over tool bar and then sidebars too with hundreds of | icons everywhere. | | Was it really more discoverable to have the icon always on | screen but embedded among so many other useless icons? | dagmx wrote: | Did you perhaps skip the on-boarding process? A lot of what you | mention has been part of the Getting to know your iPhone on- | boarding since they were introduced on the iPhone X. | Specifically where to pull down from and pull up from. | | I'm not sure what you mean by the flashlight not being | actionable. Notification shade/Lock Screen buttons are long | press actions to prevent accidental activation. | | On iOS 16 there's now a button on the launcher to invoke search | in case people want to avoid swiping | | You say they design their products to be used by tech savvy | people but gestural design is designed to become intuitive | after the first tutorial. Indeed the only people I know who | struggle with it are tech savvy people who skip the on- | boarding. In much the same way that people who think they're | handy disregard ikea instructions etc | | Here's a talk on the thought process behind a lot of their | "fluid" design https://developer.apple.com/wwdc18/803 | nfw2 wrote: | I am not talking about myself personally. Users like my mom, | who have trouble navigating AirBnb, are going to have trouble | remembering 8 different swipe actions, even if they go | through a tutorial. A designer needs to anticipate users | skipping tutorials or just forgetting them. A tutorial is not | an alternative to usable design. | dagmx wrote: | You're now conflating usability with discoverability which | are very different things. | | Many very usable actions are left to intuition and | discovered as such or by on-boarding. | | Pinch to zoom is a classic example. | | The swipe to dismiss gesture is very usable once it's | discovered. iOS does a very good job at training people | that actions from the edge of their device do things. It's | fundamental to the design of the OS and has been so since | day one. | | I also feel like comparing navigating an app with its own | unique idiosyncrasies that you do so sporadically to | navigating an OS daily are very different orders of | magnitude on developing muscle memory. | | Anyway I think you're arguing very different aspect of UX | design | egypturnash wrote: | I've been using iOS devices for years and getting what I want | when I swipe down is a constant roll of the dice. Did I do it | in the ambiguous zone for the control center or did I do it | where I'll get recent notifications? Oh wait if I'm on my | phone instead of my tablet I need to swipe up for the control | center. Why it needs to be different on the tablets I've | never really known, it used to be from the bottom and it was | really nice for it to be consistent. Maddening. | glandium wrote: | > Did you perhaps skip the on-boarding process? | | I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in Japan, | when you buy a phone in a mobile carrier shop, they set it up | for you, which means any on-boarding that exists on the phone | OS is skipped entirely. | vavooom wrote: | "Using the spacebar as textbox navigation" is life altering as a | rabid Notes user. | comex wrote: | I found swiping on the Safari URL bar to switch between tabs a | bit _too_ "discoverable": I was constantly performing it by | accident when trying to switch between apps. I quickly switched | back to "Single Tab" mode in settings. | shp0ngle wrote: | one thing I discovered just now, four years after switching to | iPhone: | | you can actually tap and drag the scrollbar! You need to find the | correct time for it to appear, and you need to tap it _just | right_ - not too much on the top or on the bottom. And then you | can very quickly go up or down, without stupid scrolling like | idiot. | | Very useful if you want to scroll more quickly. Scroll like it's | 1998! | scary-size wrote: | Took me two years to learn that I can hit the volume down button | to trigger the camera... | knolan wrote: | In fairness this has been around since feature phones. | wolpoli wrote: | Sounds like they could help by putting an icon next to the | volume down button. | yakubin wrote: | My least favourite "feature" of iOS now is shake-to-undo. I've | never triggered it intentionally. It's too weird of a thing to | remember when I actually want to do it. It would also feel | ridiculous even if I remembered it. The only times I trigger it, | it's by accident, and then I need to cancel it. | svendahlstrand wrote: | You should turn it off then. :) Search for shake in the | Settings app. | nicoburns wrote: | On the contrary it's one of my favourite iOS features. If | you're writing any volume of text on mobile it's super useful | to undo accidental mistakes. Android just doesn't have undo at | all and your text is gone. Probably would be better as a long | press menu option though. | layer8 wrote: | I actually use that quite frequently, because it's often | quicker than the equivalent text editing operations. You can | turn it off in _Settings_ > _Accessibility_ > _Touch_ > _Shake | to Undo_. | easton wrote: | The one that bugs me sometimes is shake to send feedback, | because the feedback form isn't useful whenever I trigger it by | accident. The funniest implementation is Microsoft Teams, where | if you shake it pops up a feedback form that then says you | can't send feedback because it can only be sent via Mail.app, | not Outlook (you know, the Microsoft email client that your IT | department makes you use instead of Mail.app?). | hs86 wrote: | I moved to iOS over a year ago after using Android exclusively, | and I agree that this was a discoverability downgrade. Editing | text with various multi-finger gestures, shaking the device, or | even putting the entire Photos app into a different mode to | select multiple items are outright downgrades to what Android | does. | | The iPhone innovated finger-touch-based on-screen keyboards while | everyone else was still typing with a stylus on a tiny keyboard, | but since then, they seem to stagnate. iOS 16 just got haptic | feedback on its keyboard in 2022(!), and I am still making more | typing errors compared to Android with Gboard. | shepherdjerred wrote: | > iOS 16 just got haptic feedback on its keyboard in 2022 | | Wow thanks for letting me know. I finally have haptics again | after switching to an iPhone 6 years ago. | | I totally agree with iOS having a worse typing experience. On | Android with Gboard I could swipe/type extremely quickly with | few errors. On iOS I make a mistake every few works, and the | swipe accuracy is significantly worse. | | I know that there is Gboard with iOS, but I've had a lot of | trouble with custom keyboards on iOS, so I've given up. | skizm wrote: | > Editing text with various multi-finger gestures | | What multi-finger text editing gestures am I missing out on? | svendahlstrand wrote: | Undo and redo: | | _Undo the last edit: Swipe left with three fingers, then tap | Undo at the top of the screen._ | | _Redo the last edit: Swipe right with three fingers, then | tap Redo at the top of the screen._ | | https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-with-the- | onscree... | dangus wrote: | Discoverability isn't important to shortcut functionality like | this. | | You don't have to navigate text with the spacebar, you can touch | the text directly and touch and hold. | | You don't have to delete numbers in the calculator, you can hit C | to clear the current number and retype it (a lot of people think | that doing this will totally clear your operation, which isn't | true: C is different than AC). | | You can hit the tabs button in Safari to switch between tabs, | swiping the address bar is a shortcut. | | I would also argue that the safari address bar swipe is very | discoverable. You can see the next tab's address bar on the side | of the interface, so it's implied you can scroll to it. | | Basically, an analogy to this argument is that the author of this | article should be telling us that keyboard shortcuts should be | banished because they're not discoverable. | | Also, I don't think discoverability is the same on touch screens | as in desktop operating systems. Nobody complains about the | discoverability of pinch to zoom or tap and hold because it's so | obvious and intuitive. On the desktop, drag and drop is a similar | feature that could be seen to be not so discoverable. | crazygringo wrote: | It's funny how I've witnessed a complete 180deg change from how, | in the 1990's, software was supposed to be entirely discoverable | and it also came with a manual that documented literally | everything, to now there's a ton that's hidden, often without any | manual whatsoever... but you can Google everything you need to | know. | | Probably the single most useful skill I've had to learn in my | life is, whenever you wonder something, just Google it. If you | don't think your software does X... don't just assume it. Look it | up. | | I've been astonished at how often a feature was added 3 years ago | to a program I've used for 8 years, or there's a secret swipe | that avoids a bunch of menus, or an unofficial command-line flag. | | And it really leaves me feeling deeply conflicted. Because on the | one hand, I still believe in the virtue of learning your tools | inside and out. I would read the manual and be proud I knew | exactly what every program/language could and couldn't do. But on | the other hand, is that really just a waste of time? Programs | have _so_ many features now, that instead of learning all the | things via discoverability or a manual, we just learn them by... | querying how to do things when we need them. | | I don't really like the idea of so fundamentally relying on | Google and forums and tutorials and Reddit and YouTube videos as | the main way of learning how to use software. But at the same | time, software does so much now and adds new things so quickly | that it appears to be the only reasonable way. | WalterBright wrote: | I still can't find a list of all the command key shortcuts for | Windows. Googling it yields lots of pages of partial lists. | thih9 wrote: | > also came with a manual that documented literally everything | | Note that iPhones have a manual too, it's easy to navigate and | quite comprehensive. E.g. here's a page that describes the | "trackpad" action: https://support.apple.com/en- | gb/guide/iphone/iph3c50f96e/16.... . | Ankaios wrote: | Even the manual itself isn't discoverable. (At least I don't | see an obvious entry to it in the iOS UI.) | judge2020 wrote: | The "Tips" app has the User Guide available interactively | with full Table Of Contents & search functionality. There | are also more tutorial-esque articles for things like 'open | control center' or 'take a screenshot'. | | https://support.apple.com/en- | gb/guide/iphone/iph3afc3b3fc/16... | [deleted] | agumonkey wrote: | This pattern is quite global. Everything is "more available" | now, real time streamed, there's no apparent need for apriori | organization since we can correct on the fly. Or so it seems. | | Games are patched live, browser in constant update etc etc | bobbyi wrote: | In the 1990s, plenty of people felt obligated to drive to the | mall, walk into B Dalton, and purchase a 300 page book to learn | how to use their new software. There was a whole section for | it. | | Today, they can find the equivalent information for free | without leaving the device where the software is running. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Hard to say though if those books were in fact published by | opportunists that surmised (correctly) that there was an | audience out there that were either intimidated by the | software manual (or assumed they would be without actually | trying to read it) or who had pirated the software and so had | no manual. | layer8 wrote: | > we just learn them by... querying how to do things when we | need them. | | The problem with this is that you don't learn any new features | that you wouldn't have come up with on your own. | | I loved reading the well-written manuals and "on-line" | (integrated into the software) help of the 90s (and 80s) that | explained all the concepts and features of the particular | software. You'd learn a ton of new ideas and possibilities. It | was really fun and exciting, and it gave you the perception of | a well-designed and well thought-out whole. You built up a | consistent mental model of the software, and you thus ended up | with the feeling of mastery and control over the software. | | Nowadays it feels more like poking the software with a stick in | an attempt to build a mental model and discover its | capabilities by trial and error, often remaining in doubt about | the actual intent of how exactly things are supposed to work. | [deleted] | culi wrote: | As annoying as they can sometimes be, the little tips that | pop up every now with "Hey did you know you can do this?" are | a neat little solution to this. Really like the unobtrusive | ones like the GitHub "ProTip!" at the bottom of the pull | requests page | | It does get a bit ridiculous though. There's entire sites and | content creators focused solely on VS Code tips. At what | point are we gonna end up with engineers working on adding a | feature to VS Code that they didn't know already existed? | thih9 wrote: | I feel like I'm reading more manuals than ever. Libraries, | CLI tools and other specialized software have well written | and very useful docs. Same with pro camera software, music | gear software, and more. | | For "consumer" software I usually don't need manuals, I can | find what I need via poking; this often includes power user | features (when I use something sufficiently often). | | Is it possible that what you're feeling is nostalgia? Have | you actually read the manual for your phone? | layer8 wrote: | > Have you actually read the manual for your phone? | | I have, and it's abysmal, because it doesn't make any | attempt at explaining anything on a conceptual level, or | even explaining basic UI elements. It doesn't teach you how | to interpret what you see on the screen. It does the bare | minimum of enumerating the steps to activate a given | feature, presuming that you are able to match those | descriptions to what you see on the screen (there are | barely any screenshots) and that you know why you would | want to use that feature in the first place. It also | doesn't address any failure modes, and doesn't discuss | relevant considerations regarding the use of the given | feature. | thih9 wrote: | I see your point better now, thanks for explaining. That | makes sense. | | Then again, today's smartphone operating systems are as | popular as home appliances in the 90s. | | Maybe if we took something modern that is as niche as | software in the 90s then it might come with a manual with | a mental model too. | layer8 wrote: | Home appliances also used to come with detailed and easy- | to-understand manuals, and mostly don't anymore. It's | mainly that manufacturers stopped caring, due to | accelerated product cycles and globalization, because the | products sell regardless. | thewebcount wrote: | I recently bought a new washing machine. It has a mode | with an odd name that turns out to be tied to a cleaning | product from another company. The manual doesn't have any | information on what the mode does or why it exists. The | manual is a generic manual for like 5 or 10 models, and | seems to only include the functions common to them all. | Any function on a higher-end model that's not included on | the lower-end model is just not documented. I guess if | you want to use those, you're on your own. | | But of course, there's a phone app you can download and | give the company a bunch of personal information to | connect your washer to your home network so you can get | notification when it's done with its cycle. | teddyh wrote: | There was a book series called "The Missing Manual - The | book that should have been in the box(r)": | | https://www.oreilly.com/search/?query=missing+manual&form | ats... | [deleted] | numpad0 wrote: | Those manuals from good old times came with introductions | and basic training chapters. Manuals for music gear | software don't come with composition crash course, do they? | In 80s and 90s they would have. | 1-6 wrote: | I actually miss picking up books like the Macintosh Bible where | you can read through UI features. There was something fun about | reading and then trying it in front of the keyboard. | Gigachad wrote: | Apple actually does have an extensive and up to date manual on | their products which includes all those obscure convenience | features. I don't think much has really changed in this regard. | The manual exists, is very easy to read and understand, but | people don't care because they get by without it just fine. | toast0 wrote: | > but you can Google everything you need to know. | | It's hard to Google things you don't know exist. And it's hard | to Google things that changed. If you've ever had a problem on | macos, Googling is only useful if the problem is new; if it's | been an issue in older versions, you're going to find all those | questions and maybe some answers but they likely don't apply | because Apple broke it differently now. Other vendors are not | immune to this either, of course. I understand Apple actually | does have manuals, they just don't print them and if they | reference them, many people (including me) never noticed. | jonas21 wrote: | Have you tried googling "iphone manual"? The first result is | the iPhone User Guide [1], which is a comprehensive manual that | does document literally everything. | | The manual is also available as an 843-page ebook [2], and is | accessible via the Tips app, which is preinstalled on the home | screen. | | It's not quite like the days when a paper manual would be right | in the box, but it's close. And I think most people would be | unhappy if their sleek new phone came with an 843-page tome | (not to mention how much paper that would waste). | | [1] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/welcome/ios | | [2] https://books.apple.com/book/id6443146864 | mdemare wrote: | > The manual is also available as an 843-page ebook [2], and | is accessible via the Tips app, which is preinstalled on the | home screen. | | I didn't know that. I thought Tips was an app that gave you a | couple of dozens of tips, and nothing else. | morsch wrote: | Macs in the 90s, so System 6, 7 and 8, were full of hidden | stuff. Clicking stuff while holding option, you would discover | all kinds of interesting features and easter eggs. | | https://wiki.preterhuman.net/The_Macintosh/Newton_Easter_Egg... | mrkwse wrote: | I think the swiping back on new tab feature is a very well | thought out piece of UX. | | If a user taps a link that is set to open in a new window/tab, | while the bottom/top (depending on user config) URL bar does | animate to show the transition, the user may still expect to be | able to navigate back to where they came from (especially in such | a case where they haven't deliberately made the decision to open | in a new tab). | | I'd argue it would be worse UX for the back swipe to not navigate | to the previous page in such circumstances than that it does but | closes the tab (which is reasonably signalled by the URL bar | animation). | vidanay wrote: | I've been an Android user since day 1 and had never used an | iPhone until about a year ago when my company replaced my work | phone (Android) with an iPhone. It took me two months before I | realized there is a difference between swiping down from the top | on the left and swiping down from the top on the right. | | I don't think Android is necessarily better though - I simply | have more experience with it. | Gigachad wrote: | I remember that top swipe situation being the same on my Nexus | 7 (2012) | cjohansson wrote: | I would say most people don't know 90% of how to use the iOS | interface but ppl are in general not interested in learning it | and wouldn't read a manual if the box included one or even watch | videos of it. People just what Apple to read their minds, to get | their stuff done in as little effort as possible and people are | willing to pay a lot of money for that experience | theptip wrote: | This drives me mad too. However, not sure it's the end of the | world. In many cases these are extra shortcuts, analogous to key | bindings. Power users are (should be?) aware of the existence of | such things and look them up. It's hard to make keyboard | shortcuts discoverable (though IntelliJ does a good job). | | I think it's extremely problematic when these are core UI actions | instead of shortcuts. Manipulating long form text is quite | annoying without the space-bar trick for example. Hard to see how | you'd make that discoverable though. (An interesting UX thought | experiment!) | Gigachad wrote: | The space bar trick is clearly explained in the iOS manual. | Probably even in the Tips app too. At some point there is just | no way to get people to know every feature short of forcing | them to read the manual and locking the phone with a quiz on it | at the end. | traeregan wrote: | Where I work we've been developing mobile apps since the first | iPhone, and we still have these "How the hell was I supposed to | know?" moments quite often. | | A couple of my friends who don't work in tech. are sort-of | hobbyist iOS fanboys, and they always get a kick out of it when | they show me some feature or gesture that I wasn't familiar with. | jwalton wrote: | My favourite is the "double tap with three fingers to zoom in the | display". This happened to me by accident while my phone is in my | pocket. The first time it happened, I had to borrow someone | else's phone to look up how to undo it. | carom wrote: | I do find myself regularly saying things like - | | >Ah yes, the three finger force press double tap right swipe, of | course. | | What bothers me about these is how non technical people who don't | search will never find them. On the other hand, it might be good | to have things hidden so someone non technical can't get their | phone into a bad state. | gayn1gga wrote: | jonplackett wrote: | Shake to undo a - surely the weirdness iPhone design decision. | baggy_trough wrote: | Worse than undiscoverable features are landmine features where an | accidental gesture triggers some huge mode change that can't | easily be reverted. | armchairhacker wrote: | these features may be hard to discover but they are all really | useful. Imagine if Apple just didn't add include because they | couldn't find any way to do so intuitively. And once you know | them, they're not complex or hard to use. | | "Intuitive and easy" > "unintuitive and easy" > "intuitive and | hard" > "unintuitive and hard" > "non-existent" | doe88 wrote: | Is there a guide / (giant) cheatsheet of all these hidden | features, collected somewhere? It would be a great ressource. | sbuk wrote: | There's the user guide... | koinedad wrote: | Yeah it's hard! Kind of the flip side but related to the text | navigation: https://technicallychallenged.substack.com/p/my- | favorite-iph... | allanrbo wrote: | I used iPhone 2008-2012, Windows Phone 2012-2015, Android | 2015-2022, and then recently bought an iPhone again to see what | it's like these days. | | I was baffled by how unintuitive it has become. So many "secret | codes" you need to know these days to use an iPhone. Swiping down | from the top on the left or the right bring you different | dashboards? Swiping up from the bottom and hold to switch between | tasks? How is anyone supposed to guess guess this stuff? | Gigachad wrote: | They could read the onboarding steps you are forced to click | through when you set up the phone. Or the "Tips" app that comes | preinstalled. Or even the full and extensive manual on iOS. | jbverschoor wrote: | While I also hate the "undescoverability". It's possible that all | (maybe not all) usecases of an app are still available to | anything visible. For older or less tech interested people, this | is actually perfect. | | The problem lies in the following cases: | | 1) Person accidentally does something | | 2) Edge case / state / scenario, which cannot be solved without | knowing some shortcuts. | | I think iOS became too complicated for some people. At the same | time the UI is a pretty messy and inconsistent at times. | djmcnab wrote: | In unfamiliar UIs, I often find myself accidentally triggering | keyboard shortcuts and getting into weird states, so 1) leading | to 2). A classic example is changing into override mode[0] in | Microsoft Word or similar[1]. | | You end up in a mode where typing no longer adds characters, | but replaces them. If you're at the end of the document, it | would still add characers, but you stay in override mode. | Meaning that once you're in this mode, it doesn't strike until | you start editing or try to fix a typo, when the computer. | WordPad doesn't even have any visual distinction. | | Visual Studio Code's solution to this is nice. If you enter | `Tab Moves Focus` mode, with <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>M</kbd>, the | info bar shows the text `Tab Moves Focus` in a (tastefully) | highlighted button, clicking which disables that mode. So you | will have a moment of confusion upon pressing tab, | inadvertently entering the mode, however the situation of 2) is | avoided as a helping hand is visible. | | Perhaps another UI is to have a log of activated keyboard | shortcuts always visible, with 'new' shortcuts highlighted more | obviously (perhaps with some estimation of decaying | familiarity). I'm not familiar with this being implemented | anywhere, but I think it at least merits consideration. | | [0] This is activated with <kbd>Insert</kbd>; | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insert_key [1] In the version of | Word I currently have installed, this behaviour seems to be | disabled/removed. However, Wordpad still changes into override | mode upon pressing Insert. | layer8 wrote: | The other problem is the flat design which makes it non-obvious | which parts of the UI are tappable controls and which are just | read-only design elements or indicators or labels. | | Another issue is inconsistent placement. For example during | iPhone setup, sometimes you have Continue buttons centered in | the bottom half of the screen, and sometimes you have to tap | the small "Next" label at the top right of the screen. I've had | family members get stuck in that process because the Next | button was so inconspicuous and so far removed from the main | elements of the current dialog that it was completely unclear | to them how to move forward. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-24 23:00 UTC)