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> "People need to feel that they can try things without damaging the system," recommended Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. well, for what it's worth, many m

> "People need to feel that they can try things without damaging the system," recommended Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. well, for what it's worth, many modern apps aren't following that guideline. for a long time i have questioned the disappearance of tooltips in user interfaces. especially when everybody seems to come up with their own iconography nowadays. the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop. they will probably confine that useful command palette to particular apps too. because you can't have a command palette on mobile either.

jrochkind1 5y ago
I don't understand the relationship you are suggesting between tooltips and feeling that you can try things without damaging the system.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  It's harder to damage things if tooltips give you some idea of what's going to happen when you push a button.
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  Either you have a tooltip explaining the function or you have to test it to understand what it does. But to test something you want to know it doesn't cause problems. I feel like this is some fundamental UX dimension here. Cost and risk of learning. How much time do I have to use to learn all the commands or find the right command and if I have to try it what is the risk of breaking something? Just as relevant in cli applications.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    Another thing that helps is a predictable, reliable undo function. If the user believes that any action is easy to undo, unknown actions won't be so scary. Of course, this is sort of a chicken-and-egg problem, because other than ctrl-z in certain desktop environments (in which environments undo is not always either predictable or reliable), there is no well-known idiom for undo.
ape4 5y ago
So many icons are not obvious. Why not some text under it if you can have tool tips.
themitigating 5y ago
A gui combined with tooltips is one the easiest to learn interfaces. I have a very bad memory and GUIs show me what my options are. It's like typing a command with --help except it's always there
karaterobot 5y ago
> the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop. Achieving uniformity by reducing the user experience to the platforms' lowest common denominator. Not the best solution!
- tshaddox 5y ago
  It actually doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea to me, at least under the assumption that you’re not going to maintain an entirely separate UI for the mobile and desktop apps (which would be ideal, but is incredibly expensive and tends to result in broken and missing features on one or both platforms even for companies with enormous budgets). I would argue that “reducing to the lowest common denominator” actually is one of the more reasonable solutions among the feasible options. It certainly isn’t a great solution to create a UI that is impossible to understand without tooltips and ship that UI to mobile devices without the tooltips!
  - jakear 5y ago
    Best option is to provide choice. Icons with Labels by default, show keyboard shortcut on hover. Want just icons? There’s a config option for that. Want just labels? Also an option. Want no toolbar at all, and only use shortcuts? Also an option.
    - skeeter2020 5y ago
      It ebbs and flows but I feel like we're coming to the end of a long period of "convention over configuration" that prioritized consistent, predictable behaviour across systems at the cost of powerful options & custom configurations. I understand what you're saying but there's also cost to implement and maintain all those options you want, plus a huge set of testing combinations for QA
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      I clicked your profile to see exactly who would come up with such an odd take, and then it made sense. I actually agree with you that this type of deep customisation is great for a "productivity tool" like VS Code. For something that people don't spend hours of every day in, though (say, a weather app), you don't need or want this level of customisation.
Xevi 5y ago
> the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop. Yes you can. The generally agreed upon way to do this is by long pressing whatever you want to see a tooltip over.
- jdhn 5y ago
  The problem with this is how you indicate to users that tooltips exist via the long press action. I personally never knew that long press to show a tooltip was the "generally agreed upon way" to show tooltips, and it would be a lot simpler to just have a button label.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    How do you indicate to users that they can right-click on a computer mouse? You don't; they just know it. If they don't, their friends and family will teach them.
    - Drew_ 5y ago
      It's pretty undesirable to hide functionality behind invisible gestures or menus specifically because users do not "just know it".
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        Better than just deleting the functionality.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    You put a line of text in the mobile UI that says "To see tooltips, press and hold on a button." You can stop showing that line of text once they've shown a tooltip (or two, if you're worried about them triggering it accidentally and not knowing how they did it).
- tshaddox 5y ago
  I’m not aware of anyone agreeing to that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mobile UI that shows tooltips when you long press on a button.
staindk 5y ago
I'm always glad when an app with confusing buttons has 'tooltips' implemented that pop up when you long-press a button. I think long-pressing for more info on touch screens feels quite intuitive, similar to how hovering feels intuitive when you have a mouse pointer.
ok_dad 5y ago
see: the blackberry storm, which had hovering with a touch screen. I loved that phone.
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  How? Did you long press on it?
  - barrkel 5y ago
    Judging from old reviews of the phone, it looks like a positional proximity sensor. The screen had a blue hover glow where your finger approached the screen.
    - ok_dad 5y ago
      It was literally a screen mounted on a button, actually.
  - ok_dad 5y ago
    The whole screen was mounted on a big button, so touching it was hovering and you'd press the screen with a satisfying click to execute something. It wasn't the most reliable if you weren't careful, but why not do that with a pressure sensor nowdays?
    - kymaz 5y ago
      Also known as force touch on an iPhone.
      - ok_dad 5y ago
        I've not used an iPhone for a while, but according to Google search: > The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro will ditch 3D Touch in favor of "Haptic Touch," according to Apple's website. ... The new iPhones' Haptic Touch will be responsive to how long users hold down, but not the force of the tap. I would love that feature, but I think it has to be very integrated into the software and the APIs of the phone OS or no one will actually use it.

jrochkind1 5y ago

I don't understand the relationship you are suggesting between tooltips and feeling that you can try things without damaging the system.

ineedasername 5y ago
It's harder to damage things if tooltips give you some idea of what's going to happen when you push a button.
worldsayshi 5y ago
Either you have a tooltip explaining the function or you have to test it to understand what it does. But to test something you want to know it doesn't cause problems. I feel like this is some fundamental UX dimension here. Cost and risk of learning. How much time do I have to use to learn all the commands or find the right command and if I have to try it what is the risk of breaking something? Just as relevant in cli applications.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  Another thing that helps is a predictable, reliable undo function. If the user believes that any action is easy to undo, unknown actions won't be so scary. Of course, this is sort of a chicken-and-egg problem, because other than ctrl-z in certain desktop environments (in which environments undo is not always either predictable or reliable), there is no well-known idiom for undo.

ape4 5y ago

So many icons are not obvious. Why not some text under it if you can have tool tips.

themitigating 5y ago

A gui combined with tooltips is one the easiest to learn interfaces. I have a very bad memory and GUIs show me what my options are. It's like typing a command with --help except it's always there

karaterobot 5y ago

> the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop. Achieving uniformity by reducing the user experience to the platforms' lowest common denominator. Not the best solution!

tshaddox 5y ago
It actually doesn’t seem like that bad of an idea to me, at least under the assumption that you’re not going to maintain an entirely separate UI for the mobile and desktop apps (which would be ideal, but is incredibly expensive and tends to result in broken and missing features on one or both platforms even for companies with enormous budgets). I would argue that “reducing to the lowest common denominator” actually is one of the more reasonable solutions among the feasible options. It certainly isn’t a great solution to create a UI that is impossible to understand without tooltips and ship that UI to mobile devices without the tooltips!
- jakear 5y ago
  Best option is to provide choice. Icons with Labels by default, show keyboard shortcut on hover. Want just icons? There’s a config option for that. Want just labels? Also an option. Want no toolbar at all, and only use shortcuts? Also an option.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    It ebbs and flows but I feel like we're coming to the end of a long period of "convention over configuration" that prioritized consistent, predictable behaviour across systems at the cost of powerful options & custom configurations. I understand what you're saying but there's also cost to implement and maintain all those options you want, plus a huge set of testing combinations for QA
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    I clicked your profile to see exactly who would come up with such an odd take, and then it made sense. I actually agree with you that this type of deep customisation is great for a "productivity tool" like VS Code. For something that people don't spend hours of every day in, though (say, a weather app), you don't need or want this level of customisation.

Xevi 5y ago

> the answer i got from UX people is that "you can't hover or have tooltips on mobile". they are trying to achieve uniformity between mobile and desktop. Yes you can. The generally agreed upon way to do this is by long pressing whatever you want to see a tooltip over.

jdhn 5y ago
The problem with this is how you indicate to users that tooltips exist via the long press action. I personally never knew that long press to show a tooltip was the "generally agreed upon way" to show tooltips, and it would be a lot simpler to just have a button label.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  How do you indicate to users that they can right-click on a computer mouse? You don't; they just know it. If they don't, their friends and family will teach them.
  - Drew_ 5y ago
    It's pretty undesirable to hide functionality behind invisible gestures or menus specifically because users do not "just know it".
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Better than just deleting the functionality.
- NateEag 5y ago
  You put a line of text in the mobile UI that says "To see tooltips, press and hold on a button." You can stop showing that line of text once they've shown a tooltip (or two, if you're worried about them triggering it accidentally and not knowing how they did it).
tshaddox 5y ago
I’m not aware of anyone agreeing to that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mobile UI that shows tooltips when you long press on a button.

staindk 5y ago

I'm always glad when an app with confusing buttons has 'tooltips' implemented that pop up when you long-press a button. I think long-pressing for more info on touch screens feels quite intuitive, similar to how hovering feels intuitive when you have a mouse pointer.

ok_dad 5y ago

see: the blackberry storm, which had hovering with a touch screen. I loved that phone.

worldsayshi 5y ago
How? Did you long press on it?
- barrkel 5y ago
  Judging from old reviews of the phone, it looks like a positional proximity sensor. The screen had a blue hover glow where your finger approached the screen.
  - ok_dad 5y ago
    It was literally a screen mounted on a button, actually.
- ok_dad 5y ago
  The whole screen was mounted on a big button, so touching it was hovering and you'd press the screen with a satisfying click to execute something. It wasn't the most reliable if you weren't careful, but why not do that with a pressure sensor nowdays?
  - kymaz 5y ago
    Also known as force touch on an iPhone.
    - ok_dad 5y ago
      I've not used an iPhone for a while, but according to Google search: > The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro will ditch 3D Touch in favor of "Haptic Touch," according to Apple's website. ... The new iPhones' Haptic Touch will be responsive to how long users hold down, but not the force of the tap. I would love that feature, but I think it has to be very integrated into the software and the APIs of the phone OS or no one will actually use it.