4 ms·

One thing I was surprised to read being praised was the I-beam loupe in iOS. I don’t think any other interaction fills me with more rage than trying to paste c

One thing I was surprised to read being praised was the I-beam loupe in iOS. I don’t think any other interaction fills me with more rage than trying to paste content where I set the I-beam. You set the I-beam in a spot, and then… hold? Sometimes the “paste, copy, select all” menu comes up. Or it just prolongs the loupe being on screen. So you have to carefully slide down, without moving left or right, and then pinpoint exactly where the I-beam is with your finger, hold, and now you can paste. It will happily jump to a word or line ending on any step of that process. Or! I’ve made some typo that’s inexplicably locked in the iOS dictionary now, so I have to remove one letter… which it will happily swap back to the incorrect one after I spent 10 seconds fiddling with a virtual magnifying glass to correct it. Why is that not a signal to iOS that I’m precisely editing this text?

ryandrake 3y ago
I can't tell you how many times I've 1. tapped on the I-beam wanting to copy or paste some text, 2. waited... waited... for the “paste, copy, select all” menu to come up, 3. gave up waiting assuming I did something wrong, 4. went to re-tap the I-beam but as I did the menu finally appeared, BUT my tap dismissed it. Now I don't know--do I wait and tap again? How long should I wait? How long after I tap will I know if it was successful? Just a totally bonkers and frustrating experience, to do something that should not be complicated. This happens a lot on mobile and especially on the web. You tap or click on something, and there is no immediate feedback about whether or not that action did or will do anything. The computer churns for an indeterminate number of seconds, and then you finally get the UX feedback--or you don't. Awful.
- graypegg 3y ago
  The lack of feedback is exactly the problem, you’re 100% right. Touch interfaces are still so useless with any sort of precise control which is when you need some sort of feedback and assurance that what you want to do, is what’s happening. I’m surprised we haven’t seen some new touch-ui equivalent to “right click” become the norm. Something that signals “I’ve chosen precisely what I want to interact with, DON’T CHANGE MY SELECTION, and give me the actions I can preform on them”. How did “long press” get saddled with that and 4 or 5 other actions?!

ryandrake 3y ago

I can't tell you how many times I've 1. tapped on the I-beam wanting to copy or paste some text, 2. waited... waited... for the “paste, copy, select all” menu to come up, 3. gave up waiting assuming I did something wrong, 4. went to re-tap the I-beam but as I did the menu finally appeared, BUT my tap dismissed it. Now I don't know--do I wait and tap again? How long should I wait? How long after I tap will I know if it was successful? Just a totally bonkers and frustrating experience, to do something that should not be complicated. This happens a lot on mobile and especially on the web. You tap or click on something, and there is no immediate feedback about whether or not that action did or will do anything. The computer churns for an indeterminate number of seconds, and then you finally get the UX feedback--or you don't. Awful.

graypegg 3y ago
The lack of feedback is exactly the problem, you’re 100% right. Touch interfaces are still so useless with any sort of precise control which is when you need some sort of feedback and assurance that what you want to do, is what’s happening. I’m surprised we haven’t seen some new touch-ui equivalent to “right click” become the norm. Something that signals “I’ve chosen precisely what I want to interact with, DON’T CHANGE MY SELECTION, and give me the actions I can preform on them”. How did “long press” get saddled with that and 4 or 5 other actions?!