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Ars Dissects Android's Problems With Big Screens -- Including In Lollipop
When it comes to tablets, Google
doesn't even follow its own design guidelines." That's the upshot of Ars Technica writer Andew Cunningham's detailed, illustrated look at how Android handles screens much larger than seven inches, going back to the first large Android tablets a few years ago, but including Android 5.0 (Lollipop) on the Nexus 10 and similar sized devices. Cunningham is unimpressed with the use of space for both practical and aesthetic reasons, and says that problems crop up areas that are purely under Google's control, like control panels and default apps, as well as (more understandably) in third party apps.
The Nexus 10 took 10-inch tablets back to the "blown-up phone" version of the UI, where buttons and other UI stuff was all put in the center of the screen. This makes using a 10-inch tablet the same as using a 7-inch tablet or a phone, which is good for consistency, but in retrospect it was a big step backward for widescreen tablets. The old interface put everything at the edges of the screen where your thumbs could easily reach them. The new one often requires the pointer finger of one of your hands or some serious thumb-stretching. ... If anything, Lollipop takes another step backward here. You used to be able to swipe down on the left side of the screen to see your notifications and the right side of the screen to see the Quick Settings, and now those two menus have been unified and placed right in the center of the screen. The Nexus 10 is the most comfortable to use if it's lying flat on a table or stand and Lollipop does nothing to help you out there.
Optimizing increases the number of actions that a user performs, which increases how much data the user provides. So why would there be zero reason to spend money on optimizing?
Just look at how google has consistently fucked up UIs by removing functionality and making things more difficult and less efficient in the name of "design" in their other products. The only good thing I can say is that they're not alone, this is a pretty universal trend of idiocy.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
That's because we're still designing the web for 4:3 ratio screens, which are becoming less and less popular. That's like designing the web for 800x600 because there are still monitors with that max resolution floating around. If we would stop with the single-column views (here's looking at you, Slashdot Beta) and provide more useful information density, we could get more productivity out of our websites.
Widescreen monitors also have a unique benefit for coding if they can tilt portrait, you can fit a lot more code on a tall screen than you can on a wide one or square one.
If only someone could invent a file format that separates content from presentation, then you wouldn't have to care what screen ratio users had...
I broke myself of the habit of running many of my desktop applications fullscreen, especially web viewing, since it's pointless. It's frustrating, but it's really web developers fault for insisting on presenting information in a narrow column format. Fixed or maximum width pages drive me bonkers. To this day, most (all?) standard WordPress layouts, for instance, have a maximum width far short of a standard monitor width Why, for heaven's sake? HTML is infinitely malleable in it's native form.
The move to widescreen is certainly a nod to entertainment software, since it's much more suited to playing movies / TV shows and playing videogames in that wide view. It's also really useful in the rarer types of software that edit data in horizontal tracks, such as music sequencers or video editors.
Unfortunately, it's far less useful to those working primarily with text or other largely vertically oriented documents (like programmers). I suspect that's actually *most* computer users, especially business users. However, I also suspect that since resolutions have largely reached a "good enough" state, not a lot of people complain too much about wasted horizontal space in most of their day-to-day tasks. Instead, like me, they probably just use the space to shuffle other windows around.
If you do nothing but write code or work on other vertical documents, then of course you can always tilt that widescreen 90 degrees and get a massive amount of vertical space. Most people don't do this because they still on occasion make use of that widescreen aspect, playing the occasional video or videogame which sort of demands a horizontal aspect ratio.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
"I like this, I don't like that." So what? That's just your taste. Yes, that's a starting point, but everyone overestimates how much they understand *other* users.. What you have to do is observe users working with the software for real. And you can't just do it for five minutes and declare yourself an expert; you've got to watch users over the course of years before certain things become clear.
I was for many years a software designer targeting PalmOS and later PocketPC. In the early days we designed what were essentially scaled down desktop applications -- using common sense of course. But unlike many people in the modern App Store environment I had close contact with users. I traveled to user sites to install the software and train the users. I rode in their trucks and watched them using the software in the field. And over the years I began to gain insight into the PDA form factor and how people use it. We all started out with the notion that UI design for handhelds was about dealing with the limitations of a small screen. It took me years to realize that mobile US design was actually about exploiting the potentials of a touch screen you held in your hand. When the iPhone came out I immediately knew that Apple got it: the handheld form factor is about the experience of direct manipulation. By using a capacitive touch screen Apple removed the last perceived intermediary between the user and the things on scree: the stylus.
Now I'm no longer a professional developer, but I do watch how people use their mobile devices with interest. The author is obviously right when he says a tablet is a different animal than a smartphone, but I think he hasn't grasped what the difference is. It's not just about screen real estate; it's about the totality of how the user interactrs with the device. You can't put a tablet in your pocket, and I think that's a much huger difference than it sounds; it stands for a whole lot of other things that are different betwen a palmtop device and one that is simply hand-holdable. For example he likes the idea of widgets that float over the active application as a way of making use of wasted screen real estate. This is technology focused design thinking (how can we use this resource), not user focused. And my admittedly casual observations suggest that this idea is bad for a lot of the way users use tablets.
One interesting development has been the near-disappearnce of handheld computers in the 4-5 inch screen range that *aren't* smartphones. But wi-fi only tablets remain popular. Why should that be? Again I haven't been observing as a developer, but I think it's because people have different application focuses when they use different devices. When you see someone using a smartphone as a computer they're texting, tweeting,instagramming etc. When they're on their tablets they're surfing the web, watching videos, reading ebooks, and playing games. The idea of widgets floating over active content is ideal for someone who uses their tablet like a smartphone. It's not so great for people using tablets in the ways they seem to. Of course some peoiple *do* use their tablets like smartphones. They're the people who drag out their iPad to take a candid photo. Such people exist, we've all seen them, but it doesn't make them typical. I'd guess most tablet owners these days also have a smartphone.
I'm no longer developing, so take this with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that the focus of smartphone use is connecting, the focus of tablet use is consuming, and the focus of desktop use probably should be creating. Blowing up a phone app to a 10.1 inch screen will clearly make it look ridiculous, but it may not matter. What matters is the usability of apps that are built for the things tablet users are focused on.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.