3 ms·

A lot of discovery on desktop computers was by hovering over stuff for tooltips or poking around in menus. Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic f

A lot of discovery on desktop computers was by hovering over stuff for tooltips or poking around in menus. Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Pressing and holding the URL to initiate a drag and then dropping in a text field also works for me, but I didn't test in Gmail. It's possible Google has some custom behavior that breaks this.

jessriedel 7y ago
> Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. Indeed, I'd say the opposite: Most older folks simply do not discover stuff, or do so very rarely. They ask someone to show them how to do something, they memorize it, and they generalized/abstract from that only slightly. So they aren't missing the discoverability when changing to the tablet, while gaining a bit more intuition for swiping compared to the mouse.
newscracker 7y ago
> As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Not the GP, but I can think of one reason not to copy paste, which is to avoid overwriting whatever’s already in the clipboard. However bad the discoverability may be, this function is just drag and drop, and need not involve the clipboard unless the user wants to.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  RE: drag and drop, works on my machine https://imgur.com/NRNCrzq https://imgur.com/NRNCrzq Taking it one step further, the screen recording was uploaded by drag and drop from Photos to Imgur (the webpage in Safari, not an app). You just need to get used to the fact that “press and hold” is an action now, just like we’ve all come to accept tap, swipe, and pinch. Sure, it’s not as much of a direct physical metaphor as those, but fundamentally there’s only so much room for functionality with a finger on a piece glass. If people want more advanced features than the copy/paste from iPhone OS 3, I think it’s fair to expect them to learn one new thing.

jessriedel 7y ago

> Touch devices don't have that, so you get the basic functionality exposed, but other stuff isn't as discoverable. I don't think this is as much of a problem as people make it out to be. They've managed to keep the iPad just as accessible to everyone, and they prod you occasionally with notifications from the Tips app for people who are willing to learn more. Indeed, I'd say the opposite: Most older folks simply do not discover stuff, or do so very rarely. They ask someone to show them how to do something, they memorize it, and they generalized/abstract from that only slightly. So they aren't missing the discoverability when changing to the tablet, while gaining a bit more intuition for swiping compared to the mouse.

newscracker 7y ago

> As far as moving a URL from a Safari tab to Gmail, why not just copy and paste it? Tap once on the URL bar, the keyboard pops up with all the text selected, and there's a copy button right there. Or you can tap on the selected text to bring up the cut/copy/paste buttons. Not the GP, but I can think of one reason not to copy paste, which is to avoid overwriting whatever’s already in the clipboard. However bad the discoverability may be, this function is just drag and drop, and need not involve the clipboard unless the user wants to.

wlesieutre 7y ago
RE: drag and drop, works on my machine https://imgur.com/NRNCrzq https://imgur.com/NRNCrzq Taking it one step further, the screen recording was uploaded by drag and drop from Photos to Imgur (the webpage in Safari, not an app). You just need to get used to the fact that “press and hold” is an action now, just like we’ve all come to accept tap, swipe, and pinch. Sure, it’s not as much of a direct physical metaphor as those, but fundamentally there’s only so much room for functionality with a finger on a piece glass. If people want more advanced features than the copy/paste from iPhone OS 3, I think it’s fair to expect them to learn one new thing.