ICS Paper Cuts

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Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:18:01 -0500

The leftmost and rightmost buttons in the toolbar aren’t...

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:36:42 -0500

The leftmost and rightmost buttons in the toolbar aren’t centered in their tap areas. This is one of the issues with surrounding the whole area around a button in blue: it requires a more complex layout to ensure it is balanced. Here, it might not be easy to solve this issue without a dead zone in the toolbar; perhaps the blue highlight could be centered even if the tap area is not.

Just another dialog missing punctuation.

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:04:27 -0500

Just another dialog missing punctuation.

This here is during the “back” transition from the...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 02:04:49 -0500

This here is during the “back” transition from the page showing data usage details for a specific app. The issue here is the big gap you can make out between the list and the graph: while the list animates in with a gap between it and the graph, the graph doesn’t start moving down to fill that gap until after the back animation completes. This doesn’t feel right: the graph should either move down during the back animation, or the list should appear directly underneath the graph and have both move down together afterwards.

Apparently that “Save to” item is to add the video...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:57:14 -0500

Apparently that “Save to” item is to add the video to a playlist. Not sure how you are supposed to find that out in the UI, though: I thought it might even have been about saving the video to the phone itself. Could easily fix this by having it say “Save to playlist” or something similar.

Missing a period/full stop in this alert. Could also be improved...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:04:20 -0500

Missing a period/full stop in this alert. Could also be improved by stating why it failed, but that might not always be possible.

I can’t figure out what the X button is for on the Music...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:43:00 -0500

I can’t figure out what the X button is for on the Music notification. Sure, it closes it and stops the music, but so does a sideways swipe on the notification. Why is there an extra button here, when the standard method works just fine?

Update: Apparently you cannot swipe the music notification off, so the X is required. But why should you not be able to swipe it off? I don’t see the benefit in having a separate UI for this one type of notification. And, of course, the pause button does the same thing as the X: stop the music and dismiss the notification.

This shows the Gmail app, just after tapping to show images in...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:28:51 -0500

This shows the Gmail app, just after tapping to show images in an email. As you can see, it appears that I have now enabled showing images for all emails from this address.

However, at this point, and even with the check box as shown, that is still disabled. You actually have to tap again to enable auto-loading of images: the check mark, apparently, only means that you tapped to show photos this time (regardless of the text next to it). Incredibly confusing.

Critiquing 'Critiquing the Critique' by Jerry Hildenbrand

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:00:00 -0500

Critiquing 'Critiquing the Critique' by Jerry Hildenbrand:

ICS Paper Cuts sucks.
Notice I’m not saying I think it sucks, or saying I have issues with the content and misinformation, I’m saying it’s crap and you must agree.

Firstly here, I’m not a professional UI designer. I’m not a designer at all, actually. I’m much better at hacking away on some backend low-level code than writing about UIs. But I do like good UI, and while Android 4.0 is a huge step forward from past versions of Android, I have no trouble saying that it has plenty of issues.

I’m going to disagree, of course. (I wouldn’t post it here if I thought it was crap.) But, really, wow. I’m not going to force you to agree with me, but I’d at least like you to see my opinions here. Because that’s what this blog is: my opinions.

What, exactly, is a “Mediaserver”? Why do I care?
Is it very intuitive in this list? Nope. And that’s OK.

Which is exactly what I’m complaining about. At least we agree there. But, to me, as a user with a Galaxy Nexus trying to find how to improve battery life, I’m confused. I’m perfectly fine with a switch that shows all processes here, but I just don’t think this is a sane default.

Welcome to widgets
Actually, it takes just two motions here. One tap to open the drawer, another to tap the “Widgets” tab up top there. There’s an argument to be made for Paul’s suggestion — Google loves swiping left and right now as well — just check out the Android Market. But there definitely could be confusion with that in the app drawer.

That wasn’t actually my point, although reading my post I can see how someone might get confused. My issue here is that the launcher’s paging involves multiple (in fact, a variable number) of swipes to switch tabs. Nowhere else on Android is this required; everywhere else simply uses one swipe to switch one tab.

Long Button is Long
If your e-mail address was “jerry.hildenbrand@androidcentral.com,” you would. Seeing the full text in a list (you can have more than one Gmail account) comes in handy.

My issue is not that there is text up there filling the whole width, it’s that the actual tappable area for the button — the part shown as blue in my screenshot — is too big. I still think this. (I’d actually go as far as to say that the “Recents” shown by pressing there (along with Labels) would do better a level up in the app’s hierarchy. Then, you could put search in the upper right (like the Market) and only “New Mail” and “Refresh” at the bottom — fixing Danny Sullivan’s issue in the process.)

Twitter is not Android
Dropbox also is not Android

No, but the screenshot I posted is rendered by Android. Twitter doesn’t include the Android 2.0 graphical design in their apps, the system supplies it because Twitter hasn’t enabled the new design. Backwards compatibility, sure, but Android is still weak in the design space. Now is not the time to sacrifice usability and consistency for slow-moving app developers.

Spelling it out for you
“Siri: What is Wi-Fi direct.” It’s also covered in the Android 4.0 platform highlights, where people might look to see the advanced features of their new smartphone. And certainly the people in the store selling you your new phone could tell you. Any of these options is preferable to a multipage description that explains the Wi-Fi direct protocol and its capabilities, don’t you think?

Are you really trying to defend “Start Wi-Fi Direct Operation” as the best message that could appear here? Here’s a better one, to start: “Enable Wi-Fi Direct communication with other devices? This will disable normal Wi-Fi connections.”

Tabbing with tabs
And he’s right — they do look a little different. And he’s right — they do look a little different. And we agree […] that we’d like to see a little more consistency between Google apps. But Paul’s wrong when he says you can’t tap on them to switch tabs. Like on the Widgets tab in the app drawer, we have to wonder if he even bothered to try.

The tap targets are tiny. If you are going to try and tap on them, they should be somewhat taller than half the height of any other UI element, no? But I’m glad you agree that more consistency would be good.

Because that’s really all I’m going for here: maybe — since Android is open-source, so even if nobody at Google ever sees this blog — this will make Android better. And that’d be good.

And, not to enter another raging argument, but I think this what John Gruber meant when he said that “you either see it or you don’t.” It really doesn’t look like Jerry Hildenbrand sees it here.

Here is another example of the old Android style peeking...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:44:56 -0500

Here is another example of the old Android style peeking through, but this one is in the main OS rather than a third party app. For some reason, the built-in News & Weather widget configuration page still uses the old style. It, pretty obviously, should not.

The gradients here are somewhat obnoxious, but don’t even...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:55:36 -0500

The gradients here are somewhat obnoxious, but don’t even really help with their supposed purpose: showing that there are more items below. I’m generally not a fan of the gradients at the ends of lists throughout Android. They seem to be rendered poorly, almost looking like there is some banding, and don’t often look or work better than a scroll bar. With such a line-based UI, too, they also look out of place.

Its harder to see underneath it, but apparently that last issue...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:03:17 -0500

Its harder to see underneath it, but apparently that last issue applies to the notification shade too. Personally, I think neither of those should activate while you are touching the screen somewhere else, which would fix all issues like this.

Apparently you can still drag around Widgets and apps while the...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:01:12 -0500

Apparently you can still drag around Widgets and apps while the power menu is up. This is more of a functionality bug than a UI bug, but (like many others) it’s just another strange part of the OS.

Not sure why the Android Market felt the need to completely...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:22:58 -0500

Not sure why the Android Market felt the need to completely re-invent the standard tabs UI with ones half the height that you can’t tap on to switch. As seen in the YouTube app, it’s possible to scroll the native tabs horizontally, so that isn’t the issue here. This screen should simply use the standard tab control.

There’s no Pinch-to-Zoom in the Gmail app, so...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:06:59 -0500

There’s no Pinch-to-Zoom in the Gmail app, so there’s no way to see this whole email at once, even on a huge screen like the Galaxy Nexus. It works in the browser; it should work here too.

Considering how each of those two separate Settings pages only...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:04:41 -0500

Considering how each of those two separate Settings pages only have three items each, they should be both shown on this page in separate sections, reducing the navigation depth. The About button, with more sub-items, can stay at the bottom.

This menu should say “Select photos” rather than...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:59:36 -0500

This menu should say “Select photos” rather than “Select item(s)”. If you want to select one photo here, you just tap on it. Therefore, that menu item is only useful for selecting multiple. Secondly, although there can be both photos and videos, the word “item” is unnecessarily abstract. There’s no harm in using “photo”.

The YouTube app icon doesn’t fit in with the general Ice...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:55:36 -0500

The YouTube app icon doesn’t fit in with the general Ice Cream Sandwich theme. Although the YouTube app itself looks fine, the app icon needs a redesign.

Everywhere else in the OS takes a single swipe to switch tabs....

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:50:56 -0500

Everywhere else in the OS takes a single swipe to switch tabs. Here, it takes a variable number to reach the Widgets tab, depending on how many apps you have installed. Instead, the app list should scroll vertically, as in Android Gingerbread, and only require a single swipe to see Widgets.

For some reason the top dividing line is almost invisible. It...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:47:56 -0500

For some reason the top dividing line is almost invisible. It shouldn’t be.