Thread: FlipClock Beta
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Posts: 38 | Thanked: 6 times | Joined on Sep 2009 @ Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles
#97
Originally Posted by jolouis View Post
Up and down drags on the clock screen seems to be less responsive. It often took me 2-3 swipes up or down to get to the next screen
hmmm that one's odd as the code hasn't changed for that in a while... I probably need to tweak the button code for that to make it a little more obvious; it only works when your finger is actually over top of the digits themselves, and you have to drag down or up 20 pixels in order to trigger the change....

Can any one give me suggestions as to how to better handle this?? There's not enough space on the interface to make two more buttons "clock settings" and "alarm settings", but at the same time the drag thing really is tricky for people; There will be a little help/tutorial thing to explain it in the final version, but is explaining it a good enough solution or should I try and find another way of making it work?!

Jolouis,

Ideally, your design should 'speak for itself' and you should not have to explain how to use your program. However, a manual is greatly needed (and I will help you with it as promised).

The dragging up & down feature is most probably a result of your wish to make this program 'finger friendly'. As you undoubtly will remember, I myself had to ask this forum how to get to the alarm settings screen. I could not figure it out myself

Another finger friendly feature is the overall button design: they all are large and therefor easy to use with your finger.

But you use three types of user input interfaces: gestures, on-screen buttons (GUI) & a hardware button (the 'Escape' key for insomniac mode on/off).

Your program would be easier to figure out when you just use one interface. But hey! I like the up/down gesture! It's cool! And it's easy to have a dedicated hardware button to turn the clock lights on or off. And... I cannot imagine that all features can be either placed under hardware buttons or that they all can be used with gestures.

So... please keep using all three interfaces , but how can we better handle it?

Splash-screen / tip-of-the-day:
When I open the program, I see this splash screen:
Flipclock the ultimate timepiece loading up
Instead you can use something like this:
Drag your finger from the bottom of the screen to the top for the Flipclock alarm settings!
It will look like a 'tip of the day'! (You might want to put in a delay so people will have the time to actually read it. And you might get requests for a 'splash screen on/off' setting)
Alarms button instead of Exit button:
You can replace the 'Exit' button with an 'Alarms' button. This will make it easier for new users to get to the alarm settings screen.

Exit the program via a hardware button: use either the Power key or the Full-screen key.

A 'Settings' button can be significally smaller than the other buttons, because you only need to tweak the settings sporadically. I wouldn't mind to use my stylus to tap this (smaller) button. You might be able to 'squeeze' in a small 'Settings' button on the main screen?
A final thought on the 'Exit' button used in the night theme:
It depicts a person sleeping (Zzzz... Zzzzz...) I was very confused by this button when I first used your program: Is it a snooze button? Will it put the program to sleep (minimize) when I click on it? Even if you don't replace this button by a 'Settings' button, please consider an exit sign (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_sign for examples).
 

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