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A lot of apps accept the pull down gesture (not sure how to call it) as a refresh, e.g. mail apps. I suppose that might not work so well when your app shows a m

A lot of apps accept the pull down gesture (not sure how to call it) as a refresh, e.g. mail apps. I suppose that might not work so well when your app shows a map, like uber. Replacing a button by a gesture is ok.

yuchi 9y ago
«pull reload» or «pull refresh» AFAIK
yorwba 9y ago
It's only OK if you also describe somewhere that this gesture exists and what it does. Gestures are absolutely non-discoverable on their own. Occasionally, I try to show someone something on their Macbook, and I always have to experiment with the number of fingers on the touchpad, because nothing about the interface helps me remember the options. I guess it could be printed directly on the touchpad, but then that wouldn't be as slick.
- subroutine 9y ago
  I think the swipe-down-to-refresh UI pattern actually seems pretty discoverable. The newest things on a list are added to the top. How do you know if you're at the very top of a list? I think this gesture eloquently addresses several issues at once. (1) The user is going to pull down on the main container to check for new items at the very top of the list, but (2) it may take a manual refresh to deliver these new items; refreshing the list when the user is attempting to pull the main container window beyond the top-most item allows the app to provide the newest content the moment the user is seeking it.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Yes, when you have a list sorted by recency, where the most recent entries are at the top, you can easily discover the refresh gesture by scrolling a little bit too far. But when the gesture is used in different contexts, it is less likely to be discovered. For example most chat apps add new messages at the bottom, so the refresh gesture should be scrolling in the opposite direction. Additionally, I don't tend to scroll through my message history very often, so I'm unlikely to discover this. Fortunately, most chat apps tend to be quite good at loading new messages. It gets worse when there's little reason to attempt scrolling past the boundaries. For example, it took me months to discover that Chrome on Android supports the gesture (before that, I opened the menu to refresh). That's because to scroll on a website, I just pull once and then let go. Inertial scrolling means that the motion will stop as soon as it hits the top of the page. Past that, there's a kind of resistance that needs to be overcome, which you won't do if you don't already know the gesture. My point is, good interfaces shouldn't require the user to make accidental discoveries. There should be an obvious, labeled way to do it; if necessary, it can include a hint to use the less obvious but more convenient way next time.
    - pimlottc 9y ago
      Pull-down to reveal the search bar is another frustrating antipattern that is all too common.
      - digi_owl 9y ago
        Or just vanishing toolbars in general. Also, i have found that swipe to refresh on web browsers to be a mixed blessing. All too easy to trigger when all i want to do is to scroll to the top of the page.
dredmorbius 9y ago
A gester I'm familiar with only because it always activates when I don't want it. "Scroll to top of screen" is now overloaded with "dump all user state". The number of times this has occurred when I've been in the midst of changing that user state (say, editing in an on-page dialogue) is ... large. It is an infinity compared with the number of times I've wanted to pull-to-refresh (nil).
- digi_owl 9y ago
  So very much this. I recall when mobile browsers started adopting this, and how many times i would trigger it just because i wanted to make sure i was at the top of the page...

yuchi 9y ago

«pull reload» or «pull refresh» AFAIK

yorwba 9y ago

It's only OK if you also describe somewhere that this gesture exists and what it does. Gestures are absolutely non-discoverable on their own. Occasionally, I try to show someone something on their Macbook, and I always have to experiment with the number of fingers on the touchpad, because nothing about the interface helps me remember the options. I guess it could be printed directly on the touchpad, but then that wouldn't be as slick.

subroutine 9y ago
I think the swipe-down-to-refresh UI pattern actually seems pretty discoverable. The newest things on a list are added to the top. How do you know if you're at the very top of a list? I think this gesture eloquently addresses several issues at once. (1) The user is going to pull down on the main container to check for new items at the very top of the list, but (2) it may take a manual refresh to deliver these new items; refreshing the list when the user is attempting to pull the main container window beyond the top-most item allows the app to provide the newest content the moment the user is seeking it.
- yorwba 9y ago
  Yes, when you have a list sorted by recency, where the most recent entries are at the top, you can easily discover the refresh gesture by scrolling a little bit too far. But when the gesture is used in different contexts, it is less likely to be discovered. For example most chat apps add new messages at the bottom, so the refresh gesture should be scrolling in the opposite direction. Additionally, I don't tend to scroll through my message history very often, so I'm unlikely to discover this. Fortunately, most chat apps tend to be quite good at loading new messages. It gets worse when there's little reason to attempt scrolling past the boundaries. For example, it took me months to discover that Chrome on Android supports the gesture (before that, I opened the menu to refresh). That's because to scroll on a website, I just pull once and then let go. Inertial scrolling means that the motion will stop as soon as it hits the top of the page. Past that, there's a kind of resistance that needs to be overcome, which you won't do if you don't already know the gesture. My point is, good interfaces shouldn't require the user to make accidental discoveries. There should be an obvious, labeled way to do it; if necessary, it can include a hint to use the less obvious but more convenient way next time.
  - pimlottc 9y ago
    Pull-down to reveal the search bar is another frustrating antipattern that is all too common.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Or just vanishing toolbars in general. Also, i have found that swipe to refresh on web browsers to be a mixed blessing. All too easy to trigger when all i want to do is to scroll to the top of the page.

dredmorbius 9y ago

A gester I'm familiar with only because it always activates when I don't want it. "Scroll to top of screen" is now overloaded with "dump all user state". The number of times this has occurred when I've been in the midst of changing that user state (say, editing in an on-page dialogue) is ... large. It is an infinity compared with the number of times I've wanted to pull-to-refresh (nil).

digi_owl 9y ago
So very much this. I recall when mobile browsers started adopting this, and how many times i would trigger it just because i wanted to make sure i was at the top of the page...