Thread: FlipClock Beta
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jolouis is offline jolouis
2009-11-12 , 15:23
Posts: 631 | Thanked: 837 times | Joined on May 2007 @ Milton, Ontario, Canada
#131
UI discussions
Okay, sampieter's been beating me up over the UI lately, so I need some general consensus/answers here guys. Let me break it down point by point
[*] The interface needs to be finger friendly.[*] The whole point of the app is to make the clock display as large and obvious as possible. [*] The interface needs to be as intuitive and easy to understand/learn for users.

So keeping those points in mind, here's what sampieter recommended:
All in all, my personal recommendations would be:
-no seconds bar at all (but you already pointed out that you can remove it from the (future) themes menu)
Do we have a consensus on this? The seconds bar is handy and has some fun potential, but it does take up screen space... so is it worth keeping, or should I ditch it? It can be turned on/off by the user, and it can be used differently in different themes... but for the default "flip" theme should I get rid of it?

- instead of an 'exit' button (at the lower right of the screen), use an 'alarms' button. And from the alarms screen one can get to the settings screen. But you already pointed out that you want an exit button, so new users won't feel 'locked in'. I (still) say that using the hardware on/off buttons is intuitive and feels 'natural' if you want to close the program.
I agree that screen real estate is rightly right, especially designing for large finger interaction... but let me put it this way: how many other apps on the tablet REQUIRE you to use a hardware button to exit them?
The power key is associated with powering the device/offline mode/etc; over riding this is dangerous for users. Am I wrong here guys? thoughts?

- leave the finger gestures: they are so cool!
Not going anywhere.

Now then, in terms of the actual interface... The idea of moving the clock settings button to the alarms screen is interesting, but the more I think about it, the less it makes sense from a logic/flow point of view. The settings screen applies to the clock in general, not anything to do with the alarms. If anything I'd be tempted to go the other way, and make the alarms button appear on the settings screen. However the beauty of Flip is that it makes alarms so EASY, and I think making the alarms settings hard to find/get to would detract from that a LOT.

Now, suggestions for another "top menu bar"... personally I think the clock display is too cluttered already. I don't want to take away from that primary purpose of "BIG CLOCK" any more than already have, and an extra menu bar would be counter productive in my mind. Personally the "setup" and "Alarms" buttons are just big enough to be finger-oriented in my mind, especially since there's nothing else around them, but I'm definitely not as happy with them as with the rest. I also feel they do kind of intrude and look out of place. BUT, without them there, there were complaints that the app wasn't intuitive and self explanatory...

Aggg okay just had to get that out there... the buttons will be going away again, the interface will be changing slightly, and sampieter, I think you need to come up with a nice mockup/theme so we can have 4 themes ready at release time ;-) (And show me how this whole design thing should be done! ;-) ). Make 3 screens with whatever info/buttons/etc you want whereever you want, post it up, and I'll help you make it into a theme!

Thanks!
 

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