Developping apps for Touch devices
R
Interesting thoughts - important for Colayer 3.0 (FB link):
1) Web apps in future will not use "mouseover" for key actions (only as 'nice add-ons), as they DO NOT WORK ON TOUCH DEVICES - and most of the web apps will have to run on touch devices more & more -
Design principles:
2) Why is flash not on iPod touch/iPhone/iPad? - - > There is no onmouseover on these devices - and without that, a lot of flash apps will not work fine - hence: it would be a very bad experiance to bring flash there ...
1) Web apps in future will not use "mouseover" for key actions (only as 'nice add-ons), as they DO NOT WORK ON TOUCH DEVICES - and most of the web apps will have to run on touch devices more & more -
Design principles:
2) Why is flash not on iPod touch/iPhone/iPad? - - > There is no onmouseover on these devices - and without that, a lot of flash apps will not work fine - hence: it would be a very bad experiance to bring flash there ...
Design principles for future web apps
1) Do not use onmouseover for important actions
2) You may use onmouseover for:
a) convenience, to to things faster - ALWAYS provide an intuitive click alternative however!
b) For 'nice-to-have' - eg context help, highlighting etc -
3) MAXIMIZE the click-able areas! - so, do not just add a link to a word, but to the full text - or even to the container (div, span, td) containing the text -
4) Early test your apps on touchscreen devices: single, as well as multi-touch!
2) You may use onmouseover for:
a) convenience, to to things faster - ALWAYS provide an intuitive click alternative however!
b) For 'nice-to-have' - eg context help, highlighting etc -
3) MAXIMIZE the click-able areas! - so, do not just add a link to a word, but to the full text - or even to the container (div, span, td) containing the text -
4) Early test your apps on touchscreen devices: single, as well as multi-touch!
Marcwes: Agree very much. But you should maybe rethink this approach of having one layout working on all devices. Sure people might adapt their user behaviour from touch devices a bit, but still there is a difference of an app on e.g. an iphone or a laptop. Apple even underlined that in their advertisement for new iPad apps.
"What user interface 'technique' is available (or may come to be available) on touch screen based devices that replicates the 'mouseover' function of a traditional computer?" a good argument.
The website "Don't Click It" was designed as an alternative to mouse usage - a way to avoid clicks. Some of these ideas could be incorporated as OnMouseOver features instead of OnMouseClick for touch-screens! Wat say?
Marcwes: Well i think you have to design an interface for touch screens and for desktop screens. Basically these are different applications. I got consious when developing prototype of spontacts for conceptworks. You simply dont have all the possibilities on smartphones/mobile devices. They serve a different purpose than e.g. laptops. Apple understood that quite well in my opinion. Its just about quick sliding, picking and zooming. Its more related to interesting items than to bigger contexts or complex user inetrface techniques!
: wish
Marcwes: Well there is , somehow. Had a talk today with flash developers at my job interview. They said flash player is packed into iphone apps. But yes seems not to work in same way as desktop flash apps. Well the user experience on touch screens is differently i guess. you are not mousing around. But picking directly your item of interest. So that needs to be interesting without any animations i guess.
How to use this?
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