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I absolutely, fully, 100% agree with this. "Hunt the back/options button" drives me nuts on iOS. The ramifications of this are that when options aren't "pretty"

by cheald 15y ago

I absolutely, fully, 100% agree with this. "Hunt the back/options button" drives me nuts on iOS. The ramifications of this are that when options aren't "pretty", they are hard to get to - on iOS, if you want to change Safari settings, you have to exit Safari and go open a separate Settings app to change them. I swear under my breath every time I have to do it. The physical back button is the single most powerful feature Android has over iOS, and the physical menu button isn't far behind. A single, consistent, verb for "give me more things to do with this view" is so much better than "guess which button/graphic/icon on this screen means 'menu', then find out where it is, then press it even though it's only 6px by 6px, because we didn't want it to overwhelm our listview". Maybe a compromise could be reached by either a) adding a visual cue that there are menu actions for the current view, or b) making menu buttons in your app invoke the same menu that pressing the menu button would. I feel like this is trending towards "iOS works with only one button, we should too", and I think it's the wrong step. The search button I could kind of see - it was nice, but rarely used just due to the nature of how mobile apps were built. The menu button? Leave it alone, please. I like it just how it is.

ugh 15y ago
But the back button is horrible now that it doubles as an up button. It confused me and that kind of behavior makes it utterly useless. It’s a waste of space.
- olex 15y ago
  Yes. Too sad seeing Google step away from many great UX concepts that Android started out with, instead of further building up on them.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  When done correctly, there's a separate up button and back doesn't double as up. There is confusion because when you are drilling down into an app "back" and "up" are the same place. Even worse, I suspect that confusion is why developers often get back/up handling wrong.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Hm, but then even Google’s stock apps get it wrong. I was using a factory fresh Galaxy Nexus. Maybe we are talking about something different? What I mean is that sometimes, the back button does something different than taking you back to the last screen you were on.
    - fpgeek 15y ago
      Sadly, not even Google's apps do this correctly all of the time. Google Voice is a particularly dreadful offender. If you click on a Google Voice notification, "back" doesn't take you "back" and it doesn't take you "up". AFAICT, it takes you "back within the app", which is often crazy. Here's the scenario I just tried: 1. I was in Google Voice talking to person A. 2. I left Google Voice and was in another app X. 3. A text arrives from person B and I get a notification from Google Voice. 4. I click on the notification and go to my conversation with person B in Google Voice. 5. I hit "back". It didn't go back to app X (the Right Thing). It didn't go to my conversation list in Google Voice (the more common wrong thing). Instead, Google Voice, of course, goes to my conversation with person A! I can only hope that one of the reasons the Android team published their design guidelines was to publicly shame the developers of substandard Google apps for Android.

by cheald 15y ago

ugh 15y ago

But the back button is horrible now that it doubles as an up button. It confused me and that kind of behavior makes it utterly useless. It’s a waste of space.

olex 15y ago
Yes. Too sad seeing Google step away from many great UX concepts that Android started out with, instead of further building up on them.
fpgeek 15y ago
When done correctly, there's a separate up button and back doesn't double as up. There is confusion because when you are drilling down into an app "back" and "up" are the same place. Even worse, I suspect that confusion is why developers often get back/up handling wrong.
- ugh 15y ago
  Hm, but then even Google’s stock apps get it wrong. I was using a factory fresh Galaxy Nexus. Maybe we are talking about something different? What I mean is that sometimes, the back button does something different than taking you back to the last screen you were on.
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    Sadly, not even Google's apps do this correctly all of the time. Google Voice is a particularly dreadful offender. If you click on a Google Voice notification, "back" doesn't take you "back" and it doesn't take you "up". AFAICT, it takes you "back within the app", which is often crazy. Here's the scenario I just tried: 1. I was in Google Voice talking to person A. 2. I left Google Voice and was in another app X. 3. A text arrives from person B and I get a notification from Google Voice. 4. I click on the notification and go to my conversation with person B in Google Voice. 5. I hit "back". It didn't go back to app X (the Right Thing). It didn't go to my conversation list in Google Voice (the more common wrong thing). Instead, Google Voice, of course, goes to my conversation with person A! I can only hope that one of the reasons the Android team published their design guidelines was to publicly shame the developers of substandard Google apps for Android.