This has been a good week for Android tablet owners. Google released a refresh to the Honeycomb (3.2) and many big names released Tablet versions of their apps.I took a look at one of the new tablet apps and design solutions, good and bad, they have used.
CNN App for Android Tablet
First launch
Sometimes first launch of an app can take longer than a normal launch. It is a good idea to let users know when that happens. CNN app simply displays a process indicator telling that next time the launch will be faster.
On the first launch the app also asks if the user wants to see notifications for breaking news. While this approach is better than simply enabling notifications it is still disruptive to the user's workflow. I would strongly recommend that the breaking news notification would be turned off by default. Users would find the option from the menu and turn it on if they want to.
Main UI
The app's main screen is a split view with action bar and tabs. Navigation controls (tabs) are clearly separated from other app controls.
Main content area is basically a workspaces pattern implementation. By swiping users can navigate between different sections (left menu). The actual sliding could have implemented better but in a whole the interaction model is usable. There is a small problems though:
- Mapping. News topics are lister vertically but swiping between them is done horizontally. In practice this is not probably going to cause any problems to users or even to discoverability of the functionality but this is something to be aware about when designing apps.
Reading an article
CNN app has one critical design problem. They don't have home button on their screens. The CNN logo in the middle of the action bar doesn't do anything. A simple change would fix the problem. Move the logo to left end of the action bar and make it take user to the app front screen.
User can navigate between articles by swiping. The implementation has few problems:
- There is no visual indication of swipe gesture being available.
- User has no information how many articles are available.
- User has no information of their location in the app.
How should one include a visual indication that the swipe gesture is available?
ReplyDeleteIn my app, I also use swiping to move between articles, but do not (yet) indicate it is available. I also include traditional Next/Previous buttons at the bottom of the article. If I can cleanly indicate that swiping is available, I'd like to remove the buttons.
Hi, I'm planning to write a blog entry about this as soon as I find time.
ReplyDeleteThere are few things some apps are doing. Check out IMDB tablet version for example. In the section they show small dots with one dot highlighted indicating that there are more content available and telling users where they are in the content.
Cheers,
Juhani