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Posted by nozzlegear 21 hours ago

If you're a button, you have one job(unsung.aresluna.org)
Related: https://aresluna.org/show-your-hands-honor/
527 points | 253 commentspage 5
Sophira 13 hours ago||
I assumed that issues like "tap eight times for a no-op" not working was because of software patents not allowing the developer to do the obvious thing. Is that not the case?
aerzen 13 hours ago|
Software patents? Care to elaborate?
Sophira 12 hours ago||
I don't have any specifics, but based on experience, it feels like software giants like to patent what a lot of people would consider obvious wins (such as interruptible animations) if no other company happens to be doing it, and it felt like this would be something where that could be the case.

That said, I can't seem to find any evidence of this particular thing being patented to support my case, so it's probable that I'm wrong.

notpushkin 18 hours ago||
The author says: “Now, I’m going to exaggerate the problem a bit and tap 90-degree rotation quickly eight times.” I was wondering why the Nothing one stuck upside down after that, and expected a rant about Android not registering all taps or something. But the article got ahead with explaining how the Nothing’s solution was better. Huh?

The iPhone was eight taps. The Nothing was six. (Yeah, I could have noticed it while watching, but I was situationally incapacitated; namely, I’ve just waken up.)

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Edit: I’ve rewatched it at 0.5× and the Nothing was eight taps after all, too. Author’s point was, indeed, that all taps should register regardless of what animation state is, and Nothing doesn’t do that. Sorry for the confusion!

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Regardless! I still find the iPhone one more pleasant to look at, because the animation doesn’t stop. But if you press quickly enough, I guess what they could do is animate until the taps stop, then:

• if the image will arrive to the desired state: finish up the current 90°;

• if it’ll still be 90° away: finish up then show one more 90°;

• if it’ll be 180° away: flip it upside down, then finish up the current 90°;

• if it’ll be 270° away: flip it upside down, finish up, and show one more 90°.

But that’s not a very practical thing to implement I suppose.

Retr0id 18 hours ago||
> But the article got ahead with explaining how the Nothing’s solution was better.

No? It makes the opposite argument.

notpushkin 18 hours ago||
Then I definitely need to get some caffeine I guess *yawns*

> And it would be so much more predictable and pleasant if you could just tap the button three times at any pace you wanted without thinking, without paying attention, without getting your UI blocked by an animation that no longer helps you.

Am I misreading this?

furyofantares 18 hours ago|||
I'm not sure exactly how you're misreading it, but you are.

The Nothing isn't executing all the taps, some are blocked by the animation. It is responding visually and haptically to all of the taps, but some are blocked from doing any work by the animation.

You also said the Nothing was 6 taps but I'm not seeing anywhere the article says that. I believe it was 8 taps on both.

Retr0id 18 hours ago|||
Both animate, but Nothing blocks further inputs while it's animating (even though the haptics still fire).
notpushkin 17 hours ago||
Okay, that one is on me indeed. I’ve re-watched it at 0.5× and he does make 8 taps indeed. Apparently, only the first and the last are registered then. Sorry for the confusion!
thatguy0900 5 hours ago||
You should see my modern TV. Somehow they've gotten one button to do a great multitude of jobs, shittily.
nstents 10 hours ago||
I couldn't disagree more.

Every button has two jobs. One is to accurately convey what it will do. Two is to then do it.

Several of us can neither remember what your dynamic, curvy, arrowed, action lines do, nor can we extrapolate from them. They are an exercise in frustration. The nod to situational disability is appreciated, but most would have been useless without text descriptions.

codingdave 10 hours ago|
You are talking about the label on the button. The button does one thing. The label does one thing. You put the two together and you have UX.
nstents 10 hours ago||
I think this is a distinction without a difference. Imagine an array of buttons. What do they do? The label is intrinsic to the button. I understand this is a perspective. But, taking this to another level, perhaps an absurd one,the button only sends messages and ideally reacts to show it's been activated.
jrm4 8 hours ago||
I have a related cybersecurity point.

No interface should, on a regular basis, contain buttons that, if pressed -- harm the computer and other computers near it.

And of course, this is links in modern email.

bellowsgulch 4 hours ago||
iOS also does this. Specifically with view transitions. Somewhere after just a few iOS versions in, I think post-skeuomorphism, did iOS stop acknowledging user input in favor of finishing animations.
shevy-java 14 hours ago||
Click me?
pgisapedo 11 hours ago||
Lie you have 4
jimjimjim 15 hours ago|
I'm sure it just my personal preference but I hate animations. Most often they do little other than slow an application down i.e. the code of the application could finish the task almost instantaneously but for the sake of appearance, they make it take longer to finish. I would much prefer no animations in applications. If the animation is there to disguise some actual slow response, just let me wait, give me jarring screen changes. please. Maybe app designers could still include all the animations for "smoothness", "premium look" or "sizzle" but please include an "expert" mode that just turns everything off.
sizzzzlerz 7 hours ago|
Some years ago, I attended an informal demo of some application we built. The engineer who had worked on the UI was showing an animation of the initial splash screen. It was only 5 seconds or so but I asked him whether there was an option to disable it. He said there wasn't. I then asked if he didn't think that a user, running this many times, was going to get very tired of seeing it run every time and want to just show the home window immediately on start. I said I knew I would. I told him that regardless of how "cool" it looked, when you see the same thing a few times, it can become annoying leaving the user pissed off because its out of their control. I don't know what happened after that. Since I didn't have any authority to request changes, I was probably ignored.
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