[shr-u] first impressions

Al Johnson openmoko at mazikeen.demon.co.uk
Fri Sep 11 15:51:32 CEST 2009


On Friday 11 September 2009, William Kenworthy wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 10:35 +0100, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 09:21:31AM +0800, W.Kenworthy wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2009-09-10 at 19:12 +0100, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 07:39:02PM +0200, arne anka wrote:
> > > > > > Then where do you have any "OK" button?
> > > > >
> > > > > ok, it's called "quit".
> > > >
> > > > And it's utterly useless, in fact I'm thinking of writing up a
> > > > few small-screen usability recommendations for our friendly apps.
> > > >
> > > > One of them is: don't use "quit/close/..." buttons, they waste
> > > > valuable eral estate and you can close the windown easily in an
> > > > alternative way (panel, click on close).
> > > >
> > > > Rui
> > >
> > > Hooray - sense at last.  Coming up with a user oriented interface, not
> > > a programmers idea of what he personally likes will be a great step
> > > forward.  I like close buttons, but consistency is more important I
> > > think.  And please, please get rid of those dumb sliders used where
> > > radio buttons are used :)
> >
> > A slider makes more sense (at least to me) than a radio button with
> > two options :)
> >
> > Rui
>
> Might be cultural preference perhaps?  To me a slider means an analog
> value, on/off and similar are discrete, unconnected values so should be
> represented as such.

I remember physical slider switches with 2 to 4 discrete positions, so perhaps 
it seems more natural to me. The same goes for 3-position toggle switches and 
multi-stop rotary switches.

> Also, I cant remember any other HCI interface that uses sliders like this.

The iPhone is the obvious one, though I first remember seeing them on audio 
software that was trying to look like a physical effects unit and/or synth.

> I am also biased in that the slider designs used in shr dont work well -
> when using a finger they often require multiple swipes before they work,
> or you "miss" the active area all together - especially when moving and
> you are trying to set a slider while walking/carrying other items, ...

Are you thinking of the buggy wifi switch in shr-settings? You'd probably be 
just as upset with the same code on a checkbox when it refused to change state 
when you clicked on it.

I suspect the intent behind the slider is to get around the unintended button 
clicks when trying to drag-scroll, but it may just have been cosmetic. I don't 
have the same trouble you do operating them in the absence of bugs, but that 
comes down to preference, habit and finger size I guess. I don't know if E is 
sufficiently flexible to theme around the problem.




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