So i just bought Asus rog phone 6d and im extremely bothered by the lack of the back ,home and whatewer is the 3 one called buttons on the news androids. Is this something you all got used to with time or does this still bother you( IT really fells much less intuitive compared to the old 3 buttons ,alghtough preferably i would love to have both since the back gesture seems kinda usefull )?
I think there's a setting to bring back the buttons, if you want that.
Settings -> System -> Gestures -> System navigation
Oh my God, thank you. I hate the gestures. I'm constantly going back when I'm just trying to scroll or turn pages
Pretty sure you can still enable 3 button navigation in settings. I still use it
Definitely try gestures.
Being able to "go back" from a gentle swipe at any height is a blessing for the small hand. The rest of options are really, really intuitive.
Unless you have some mobility issues, you'll never come back after a week.
i've no mobility issues, but i can't stand that back gesture. it interferes with the ability to open drawers; and i can't spam it quickly to get out of a "deep" page in an app
gestures do have pros (for instance, the ability to hold and scroll through recents) but the back gesture just seems straight up worse to me
it interferes with the ability to open drawers
It's funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven't come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn't really "officially" recommended?
Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn't that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn't interfere with the system gestures
It’s funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven’t come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn’t really “officially” recommended?
i found this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140110123608/developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation-drawer.html (alternative link in case archive.org is down) - i presume they removed it from the old spec when they introduced the gesture navigation, so people don't use it because it interferes with the gestures?wait never mind i misread this paragraph. i presume it wasn't in the design spec as a) it's an interaction behaviour, not a visual design behaviour, and b) it was also a thing in holo design (& older[?]), so they didn't consider it part of the "material design spec"?
Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn’t that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn’t interfere with the system gestures
it's not a bad idea if you're working around gestures, but it means you can't have something where you swipe between tabs when not from the edge, and get the drawer when from the edge
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or, for example, swiping to reply/forward in a messaging app, or upvote/downvote on a lemmy client
(also, subjectively, it's kind of a bit ugly)
i presume it wasn't in the design spec as a) it's an interaction behaviour, not a visual design behaviour, and b) it was also a thing in holo design (& older[?]), so they didn't consider it part of the "material design spec"?
Yesn't. Material Design 1 and 2 guidelines have a bunch of sections regarding interaction, way more than M3 (although M3 guidelines aren't "finished" yet), but they lack a section regarding that gesture in particular.
Like, M1 guidelines mention swiping on content to swap tabs, heck, you can even find the same on the current Material Design 3 guidelines
I think it was a conscious design decision from the Material Design team to not use that gesture in particular? Because it isn't due to conflict with other components, in the tab guidelines they call attention to be careful when the content itself is swipeable.
it's not a bad idea if you're working around gestures, but it means you can't have something where you swipe between tabs when not from the edge, and get the drawer when from the edge
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or, for example, swiping to reply/forward in a messaging app, or upvote/downvote on a lemmy client
(also, subjectively, it's kind of a bit ugly)
I mean, you already can't have certain gestures with other gestures. Like you can't (or shouldn't) have swipe on a card to upvote at the same time you have swipe content to change tabs. I'd argue this restriction is better for the user because with discord's implementation it is very clear what the trigger area is, because the entire view is the trigger area.
Yesn’t. Material Design 1 and 2 guidelines have a bunch of sections regarding interaction, way more than M3 (although M3 guidelines aren’t “finished” yet), but they lack a section regarding that gesture in particular.
Like, M1 guidelines mention swiping on content to swap tabs, heck, you can even find the same on the current Material Design 3 guidelines
fair enough. although in that specific example you could construe that as a warning of unforeseen conflicts, rather than a recommendation to implement swipe gestures. like, it doesn't say "use swipe gestures for navigating between tabs", it just mentions it as though it's something the dev should already know (in the m1 guidelines, not m3 i guess)
I think it was a conscious design decision from the Material Design team to not use that gesture in particular? Because it isn’t due to conflict with other components, in the tab guidelines they call attention to be careful when the content itself is swipeable.
possibly? although i still maintain it's likely that they saw it as part of holo, so there was no need to respecify it for md? the same that they don't specify that you can scroll down to move the content field? especially as all of google's own apps supported that gesture
I mean, you already can’t have certain gestures with other gestures. Like you can’t (or shouldn’t) have swipe on a card to upvote at the same time you have swipe content to change tabs.
yes; but my point is that it reduces the available actions for no discernible benefit. it's not like they've added some spare buttons in the old place, like maybe bringing back the old universal menu button.
I’d argue this restriction is better for the user because with discord’s implementation it is very clear what the trigger area is, because the entire view is the trigger area.
maybe? i'm not sure about that though, as the hamburger button is on that side, and the drawer appears there; and i'd say "the edge from whence the drawer appears" is a lot clearer than "just any old fucking where", but maybe that's me
Alright, but wasn't the tab gesture also available on the holo era?
yes; but my point is that it reduces the available actions for no discernible benefit. it's not like they've added some spare buttons in the old place, like maybe bringing back the old universal menu button.
The benefit is less conflicting gesture triggers occupying the same area. A swipeable card/list-item has the entire card/list-card as the visible trigger. A Tab has the entire content as the trigger area. The Navigation Drawer gesture is an invisible area that can be placed on top of the visible triggers of other components.
maybe? i'm not sure about that though, as the hamburger button is on that side, and the drawer appears there; and i'd say "the edge from whence the drawer appears" is a lot clearer than "just any old fucking where", but maybe that's me
The issue is that the hamburger button is not the only button that can appear in that that place, a back button is common on that same area. The trigger area isn't the width of a button, but the width of a very specific button, and worse, it extends far beyond the edges of the button and shares the same height as the screen.
I do see your point that "anywhere" isn't an improvement, but I have to disagree, as that is fundamentally the same gesture to swap tabs, and you can predict the area trigger as being "just any old fucking where".
Alright, but wasn’t the tab gesture also available on the holo era?
honestly i couldn't say with absolute certainty, but i don't think so?
The benefit is less conflicting gesture triggers occupying the same area. A swipeable card/list-item has the entire card/list-card as the visible trigger. A Tab has the entire content as the trigger area. The Navigation Drawer gesture is an invisible area that can be placed on top of the visible triggers of other components.
i'm not entirely sure that i'm following this correctly, but assuming i am: it's the same number of gesture triggers
- old design
- swipe from edge: nav drawer
- swipe from anywhere: switch tabs (or whatever)
- tap back btn: navigate back
- your design
- swipe from edge: navigate back
- swipe from anywhere: nav drawer
- missing input: switch tabs (or whatever)
The issue is that the hamburger button is not the only button that can appear in that that place, a back button is common on that same area.
that's a fair criticism
The trigger area isn’t the width of a button, but the width of a very specific button, and worse, it extends far beyond the edges of the button and shares the same height as the screen.
this i'm also not sure what you're saying? it seems like a good thing to me - it takes up no space, and can be accessed from any height
I do see your point that “anywhere” isn’t an improvement, but I have to disagree, as that is fundamentally the same gesture to swap tabs, and you can predict the area trigger as being “just any old fucking where”.
i wasn't strictly saying that, i was more refuting what i thought your point was: that "it's not a discoverable gesture unless it's tutorialised, because most people won't randomly swipe in from the edge"; which i think in most instances is a very fair point, but in this specific instance i think it is discoverable because the drawer pulls in from the side. (source: i discovered it without a tutorial, or reading the md docs)
i'm not entirely sure that i'm following this correctly, but assuming i am: it's the same number of gesture triggers
- old design
- swipe from edge: nav drawer
- swipe from anywhere: switch tabs (or whatever)
- tap back btn: navigate back
- your design
- swipe from edge: navigate back
- swipe from anywhere: nav drawer
- missing input: switch tabs (or whatever)
this i'm also not sure what you're saying? it seems like a good thing to me - it takes up no space, and can be accessed from any height
i wasn't strictly saying that, i was more refuting what i thought your point was: that "it's not a discoverable gesture unless it's tutorialised, because most people won't randomly swipe in from the edge"; which i think in most instances is a very fair point, but in this specific instance i think it is discoverable because the drawer pulls in from the side. (source: i discovered it without a tutorial, or reading the md docs)
I'm not talking about the number of gesture triggers or their discoverability, but rather, their predictability. System Gestures are always on, no matter the screen, the area is defined despite being "invisible". The way it is on top of whatever app is currently on screen makes sense.
A swipe to change tab has the entire content as a "visible trigger", i.e. the gesture will work on any area that is visibly part of the content.
A swipe on cards/list-item (to reply, delete, etc...) has the card/list-item as the trigger area, it is visibly defined.
A swipe from the edge to open a side sheet has a trigger area that extends far beyond the confines of the Hamburger Icon. And if any of the other gestures are present, then the edge gesture conflicts with them. Even worse is, the gesture with no visible area is "on top" of the others that have a predictable area, despite the fact that they exist on the "same plane".
System gestures also don't have a visible area, but again, they work regardless of the current app, and are "on top" of apps. So despite the fact that they also conflict with the other gestures, because they are drawn on top, it doesn't feel as wrong as the side sheet edge gesture.
Like, with the edge gesture to open a drawer, you need to keep the app elements in mind as if there is some physical elevation inside the app. The edge gesture is on top of the tab gesture, and things like that.
With the system gesture, the elevation itself is between the app and the system. Almost like if the system gestures are a glass panel on top of the app. It is a predictable rule.
ah, i see. in that case i can't say i agree. i'd say that it's fairly predictable - i can't think of a single app with a drawer in which it didn't work, until they introduced gesture navigation and broke it.
with a back button, it's always in the same corner; with a back gesture what happens when the phone is rotated? (i genuinely don't know) does it stay on the side it was on, or does it move so it's now on the left? wouldn't that make it very hard to reach with one hand?
A swipe from the edge to open a side sheet has a trigger area that extends far beyond the confines of the Hamburger Icon.
yes, but it doesn't extend beyond the confines of the drawer. in my head it's more like the drawer is always there, and you can trigger it with the hamburger, or "drag" it into view manually
And if any of the other gestures are present, then the edge gesture conflicts with them.
not really - one is from the edge, one is not. it doesn't conflict any more than scrolling up conflicts with the new home gesture (and is far less often accidentally triggered)
Even worse is, the gesture with no visible area is “on top” of the others that have a predictable area, despite the fact that they exist on the “same plane”.
that is reasonable. i can't say anything to refute that
Like, with the edge gesture to open a drawer, you need to keep the app elements in mind as if there is some physical elevation inside the app. The edge gesture is on top of the tab gesture, and things like that
i mean yeah, that's the very point of material design. the whole spec goes on and on about the information conveyed by implied depth
but even before that, drawers and menus usually had some type of drop shadow to imply depth (practical skeuomorphism at work!)
With the system gesture, the elevation itself is between the app and the system. Almost like if the system gestures are a glass panel on top of the app. It is a predictable rule.
yeah, i subjectively don't like that. with nav buttons and a status bar, that's where the system was and that's how you interact with it. now it's an invisible layer over the whole screen that's not predictable at all; as a swipe right goes back, but a diagonal swipe does something else. that's two gestures on the same metaphorical "layer", one a system action and one an app action. weird.
I made it implicit, but forgot to say out loud: While system gestures makes the open-drawer-edge-gesture worse to the point of unusable, I think that looking back it wasn't that good to begin with. Which is why I think Material Design never officially supported it in the first place, way before gesture navigation was a thing.
with a back button, it's always in the same corner; with a back gesture what happens when the phone is rotated? (i genuinely don't know) does it stay on the side it was on, or does it move so it's now on the left? wouldn't that make it very hard to reach with one hand?
The pill-thingy is anchored to the bottom of the screen, so basically it always point to the ground, the back gesture is on the side. It isn't uncomfortable because it matches the easiest point to reach, which is the side of the screen relative to the user, not the device. This very old image shows the most reachable areas of a screen:
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:640/format:webp/1*9IDju9_qkRNyKpueLBhkgg.png
yes, but it doesn't extend beyond the confines of the drawer. in my head it's more like the drawer is always there, and you can trigger it with the hamburger, or "drag" it into view manually
That is fair. However, the drawer isn't visibly always there.
i mean yeah, that's the very point of material design. the whole spec goes on and on about the information conveyed by implied depth
but even before that, drawers and menus usually had some type of drop shadow to imply depth (practical skeuomorphism at work!)
It is a bit funny that the design system designed to resemble real life materials didn't really accept that metaphor. Besides, my point was that the gesture itself was implying physicality, you could move the content to swap between tabs, but the gesture was 1:1 with the content. With a drawer you weren't moving the drawer into view, you were reaching a glass handle that was glued to the drawer. Either that, or you were reaching into the realm beyond the screen to bring it on. That is something that I never quite liked for app gestures, because not only is it implied that things exist outside the screen(which is fine), but that you can somehow reach for them.
but a diagonal swipe does something else
Erm, there is no diagonal swipes, at least officially from Google. You just swipe perpendicular to the edge of the screen. So from the bottom edge you swipe up, from the left edge you swipe right, right edge to the left
I made it implicit, but forgot to say out loud: While system gestures makes the open-drawer-edge-gesture worse to the point of unusable, I think that looking back it wasn't that good to begin with. Which is why I think Material Design never officially supported it in the first place, way before gesture navigation was a thing.
i mean, i'd say it's better than nothing. otherwise one has to reach all the way up to the top to press the hamburger menu
The pill-thingy is anchored to the bottom of the screen, so basically it always point to the ground, the back gesture is on the side. It isn't uncomfortable because it matches the easiest point to reach, which is the side of the screen relative to the user, not the device. This very old image shows the most reachable areas of a screen:
that doesn't seem hugely ergonomic - i can hardly reach the bottom middle of my phone, let alone the left edge
Either that, or you were reaching into the realm beyond the screen to bring it on. That is something that I never quite liked for app gestures, because not only is it implied that things exist outside the screen(which is fine), but that you can somehow reach for them.
well yeah, it's this exactly. your finger starts from off-screen, where the drawer is currently hanging out, and drag it on-screen. almost exactly the same as the notification drawer, the control centre on ios, or that stupid "charms" thingy on win8
Erm, there is no diagonal swipes, at least officially from Google. You just swipe perpendicular to the edge of the screen. So from the bottom edge you swipe up, from the left edge you swipe right, right edge to the left
i thought that was how one opened nav drawers with gestures enabled? a diagonal swipe; or swipe, wait, then swipe a bit more (which i'm not even going to go into how awful that is). including in official google apps?
You don't need to reach the middle bottom of the screen, any area on the bottom can trigger the home/recents gesture.
The notification drawer has a bigger and more visible trigger area, tho.
I thought you were talking about system gestures, not nav drawer
You don't need to reach the middle bottom of the screen, any area on the bottom can trigger the home/recents gesture.
okay actually that is good then. that's perfectly fine.
(although when compared to buttons, i still don't know how i'm supposed to reach the left edge to go back)The notification drawer has a bigger and more visible trigger area, tho.
yeah fair point, but it's still the same paradigm of an item that gets dragged into the screen
I thought you were talking about system gestures, not nav drawer
i was sort of talking about interaction inconsistencies, but alright let me rephrase: a swipe right goes back, but a diagonal swipe does [presumably] nothing despite them being pretty semantically similar
okay actually that is good then. that's perfectly fine.
(although when compared to buttons, i still don't know how i'm supposed to reach the left edge to go back)Left or right edge, it's the same. If you are holding your phone with your right hand, your thumb is either holding the phone by the right edge, or is just hovering on top of it.
i was sort of talking about interaction inconsistencies, but alright let me rephrase: a swipe right goes back, but a diagonal swipe does [presumably] nothing despite them being pretty semantically similar
At least on LineageOS it can register a diagonal swipe as long as it sorta fits into a 45° angle, either downwards or upwards.
Left or right edge, it's the same. If you are holding your phone with your right hand, your thumb is either holding the phone by the right edge, or is just hovering on top of it.
OH. alright, i didn't know that, that's much better
At least on LineageOS it can register a diagonal swipe as long as it sorta fits into a 45° angle, either downwards or upwards.
yeah alright, that seems pretty reasonable then. i think that does sound fairly consistent and predictable
- old design
- old design
it frequently misfires when I don't want it to and fails to fire when I do. I used it for a couple of months and then went back to buttons after getting frustrated.
You just made me try it out, it's... Interesting. Hard to get used to, but I like the extra screen space.
Took me awhile to get used to gesture, but can't go back now. The only thing that still bothers me is the old UX of the slide out side menus was clearly overlooked with gesture navigation and is really awkward.
I'll never forget the day I realized my reddit app (Relay for Reddit) had a drawer that pulled out by just sliding your finger to the right from anywhere on the screen. As long as you didn't slide from the left edge, it pulled the drawer out. Why we don't make that the default is beyond me.
initially I didn't like the gesture controls but they really are better than having buttons wasting space and burning in the screen
I'm so used to gestures I can barely use a phone with button navigation. When I have to help my parents/grandparents with their smartphones I take longer just because they use buttons lol.
Also the 3 button navigation is not gone afaik. All OEMs I've used have it buried in the settings somewhere.
It's possible to adjust it so you have three little buttons but you can also use gestures from those buttons. Not the sides. I used to use that setup for a long time but know I'm just using the regular gestures for now. By the way I'm on a Samsung Galaxy S20.
*removed externally hosted image*
Fuck gestures! And people, can't you understand other people like buttons instead of gestures? If you don't have an answer to what OP asked, why bother to "give advice"?
Yeah, I'm lucky that I have the option of both gesture or three button nav of which, I still use the latter because it's better for me.
I was big on gestures back in the day with LMT and something I've found with MiuiOS is they now have that with Quick Ball as it's called. It's ace, and also a bit like AOSP Browser side gestures which I also used to use.
Further, slightly off topic ranting? Yes, where I work they currently have an obsession with installing touchscreens on HMI panels to control machinery. Problem is the touch resolution on them is dogshit so peeps end up start trying to use with them with their pens etc and physically damage the screen.
Before these touchscreen "interfaces", we had nice IP68 physical buttons on a Siemens panel that did the very same functions. Sickens me how much they cost for a lower quality interface.
It’s trying to feel like Apple after iPhone X, but I feel it misses the mark.
The swipe gestures on iOS are swiping elements, but on Android it’s triggering an action, and things like swiping from the right/trailing edge going back feels wrong to me.
I sometimes miss the back button on iOS, it’s a good button.
gesture navigation is fine for me. but i more want stacking recent tasks back
Nah, I jumped to gestures the first chance I did. 3 button navigation is old school, and on large screen devices, it's not good. Gestures have a larger surface area for activation and require less precise input to active. I also use one-handed mode+ of samsung, so I have the entire 3 sides of the screen to activate as desired. They are just that much intuitive and convenient for me.
I prefer gestures. But if you like buttons just go to settings and turn them on.
For me it's the opposite now. My boyfriend still uses the 3 bottom buttons and I am so used to gestures by now that whenever I use his phone I am always a little thrown off. To me it just feels more intuitive to swipe rather than to go to the bottom of the screen to tap a button.
Just changed back to buttons thanks to a comment on this post. I had been using gestures since I got my new Pixel mid-July (since my carrier stopped supporting the 3a and gave me a 6a for $50). Never got used to it, constantly kept accidentally swiping to go back while doing other things.
This isn't quite as good as the 3a, which had buttons for back and home, but swipe up for the app switcher, but it's definitely better than 100% gestures
