I have worked with numerous UI and UX experts over the years, and not once have I ever heard any of them say anything as rash and glib as "whatever works". Not even with your caveat. Nor is your glib assertion consistent with my own experience of good and bad UI design over the years.
Besides: your caveat qualified it with respect for convention -- which is exactly what the OP is tossing out the window. And no, the rights you so graciously bestow on the OP do not exist -- except perhaps in the fanciful imaginations of people on their own high horses. Since he asked such a bad question, he is not going to like the answers he gets. Tough luck. Next time, he should read http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html and learn from his mistake. Finally, your example of a simulated scroll wheel does not illustrate the point you think it does. Of course the presence of the wheel changed the user's perception of which way it should be (because of scroll buttons on mice): but by insisting on putting a scroll wheel in there in the first place, no matter how 'good' the reason, you introduced a contradiction into the UI paradigm of the application. If you had studied it a little closer, you would likely have noticed that as users try to make more and more use of the application, a significant plurality of them would have trouble remembering when up is up and when up is down. IOW, given that you had to introduce the wheel, allowing it to go against the grain in that one place may have worked, but only at a cost, and it is quite unconvincing that the wheel really had to be there, or is worth that cost. But I can't say a lot about your old situation, since I know only what you so briefly described. What I CAN say is that it really does go against the grain in Android, and in a way that can only detract from the UX. And that if the OHA or Google had the kind of strict UI guidelines that made Apple's OS so user-friendly even from the early days, it would NOT be allowed. You are making me wish for the straight-jackets from the Developmental Ministry in the Republic of Steve Jobs;) On Sep 17, 10:04 am, DanH <danhi...@ieee.org> wrote: > In this particular context there was a simulated scroll wheel > superimposed over the edge of the scroll list (for reasons having to > do with the dynamics of the controls). For some reason this changed > the user's perception of the control completely. Basically, the user > saw the wheel as moving the highlight bar up/down vs moving the list > up/down. (If you think about it, the scroll wheel on a mouse operates > the same way.) > > I am sure there are other situations where similar perceptual issues > could arise, such as when scrolling some sort of a map. > > And the OP certainly has a right (and perhaps legal obligation) to not > disclose the particulars of his application, in addition to simply not > wanting to hear even more of "You shouldn't be doing it that way". > > In programming there are some definite "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", but > in UI design far fewer -- it's basically "whatever works", combined > with a modest respect for convention/precedence. > > On Sep 17, 11:48 am, TreKing <treking...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 11:44 AM, DanH <danhi...@ieee.org> wrote: > > > In a particular context "normal" scroll behavior was (almost) universally > > > judged by users as "backwards", even though a few screens later the > > > situation was reversed. > > > What context? If this is clearly explained so the rest of us dumb folk > > understand, it would be easier to climb down off the high horses. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > TreKing <http://sites.google.com/site/rezmobileapps/treking> - Chicago > > transit tracking app for Android-powered devices > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
