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by aneth
5751 days ago
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If Apple tested a version of the iPhone that had four buttons on the front, it probably would have tested better because one button was unfamiliar to users and would have seemed inadequate. The point here is that sometimes good design requires challenging and educating users - doing the right thing instead of the easy thing. Apple's delight of their users is often when the user realizes he didnt actually need something he thought he did. Of course, I am describing a process involving risk, which can be mitigated through some testing, but will always be somewhat correlated with reward. |
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I've designed apps for iPhone and Android and what ends up happening on iPhone apps is that you have to put additional buttons in your app to compensate for the lack of buttons on the iPhone.
Take the virtually omnipresent back button in iPhone apps. Most applications need a back button. Hence on the iPhone, they draw this button on the top left corner. I much prefer the Android phones' hard back button, not only because it makes single-handed operation possible, but also because sometimes soft back buttons don't cut it - what do you do when you want to switch to the last app or what if your app lost focus to another app because of some unsolicited event and you want to go back? Same for search button.
Now I'm not saying Android got all things right. In fact Android UI, UX is nowhere as pleasant as iPhone's. But, I don't agree that a single button on iPhone was a good decision. I'd like to know if there have been any real-life studies or empirical data on this.