[zentechen]

Can't say much about Android, but the Back button on the Windows Phone is unreliable and doesn't always take you back to where it's supposed to be. It's just confusing. I much prefer the simple UI that iPhone has with a single button.

[pedalpete]

I kinda have to agree with contextfree that I can't imagine not having a back button on my wp7. But I also agree with you that it doesn't always take you to where you expect to go. Same problem with the search button.

The problem here, I think, isn't so much the button itself, but developers not following the conventions, and Microsoft (and possibly google, I don't have an android) not steering developers in the right direction.

For example, the IMDB app on WP7 has a search icon on the top right of the screen which they expect you to use to search. They should have used the already existing search button on the phone, but if you hit the phones search button, you go to bing search, because the app only knows how to use it's own search button.

Same with back buttons. If the developer has used it properly, it should take you to the previous screen of that app, but 90% of the time, it goes to the previous app.

Hopefully 'app switching' in mango (I don't think multi-tasking is the problem, its that we can't switch from one app to another without going to the home screen) will solve much of the back button issues, and possibly the new Bing/app search integration tools will help with the search button.

[contextfree]

I'm curious what these apps are that don't support the back button. The back stack is an integral part of the Silverlight framework on the phone - unless your app is XNA-based you would have to go out of your way not to support it.

btw, IMDB can't support the search button because it's actually not exposed to third-party developers. Use of the search button for in-app search is actually scrapped in Mango because people found it confusing - the built-in apps that support search now have their own on-screen search buttons.

[pedalpete]

Thanks for clarifying on the search button, and now that I'm going through apps on my phone, I can't seem to find the places where before I've found 'unexepected' use of the back-button exiting the app rather than taking me to the apps previous screen.

I guess that is really the problem, the majority of apps follow convention, but then every once in a while you get something that doesn't and it is gets confusing.

[contextfree]

Fair enough. My guess is that the apps that don't support it are mostly games, which generally use a different framework that doesn't bake in this or any other interface conventions. But I can see how any amount of inconsistency could prevent a feeling of confidence. I guess to me the fact that these games tend not to look or feel anything like other apps is enough to keep their behavior from polluting my subconscious mental model of expected behavior in general.

[zentechen]

Being useful and hard to use are two different things. For developers, more buttons mean more things to consider when developing apps.

Personally, I just don't see the usefulness of Back buttons on WP. The Back button should be replaced when the multitask swtich feature in "Mango". The Search, maybe, it's useful sometimes. Again, like you've mentioned, the users would have to guess whether it will bring up the Bing Search or the in-app one. It sounds just confusing.

[contextfree]

I'm not saying your POV isn't valid, but when you say "I just don't see the usefulness of Back buttons", my visceral reaction is as if you'd just said "I just don't see the usefulness of having thumbs." After using WP and Android for a while, hitting the back button became almost a subconscious reflex action, and trying to use something without it seriously almost feels like I'm missing a body part.

[zentechen]

I am well aware that we all got 10 fingers unless you are mutants. Why use only one, right? Well, when comes to UI, the less is better for users. And it's less UI behavior consideration for developers. That's all.

[jquery]

> Well, when comes to UI, the less is better for users.

So you would remove the back button in web browsers, right?

[zentechen]

Well, it actually did. Compare the Firefox 1 UI with current FF5 browser you will notice how much the UI has changes, simpler and cleaner, and the history-back buttons are gone.

FF1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firefox_1_0_8.png

FF5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firefox5.png

Remember Netscape? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Netscape_Navigator.png

[contextfree]

fwiw, I've had completely the opposite experience. I've found the back button a godsend on both WP and Android platforms, and haven't really noticed this unreliability. Actually, as a user I prefer to use my Windows phone over my other devices almost entirely because of a combination of two features: the back button (missing from iOS) and a decent soft keyboard (missing from the Android phone I have, which is running 2.2. I've heard the keyboard in 2.3 is much improved, but unfortunately the upgrade wasn't available for my phone last I checked). There are a lot of things the other platforms have over the WP, but being able to have those two things together is enough to outweigh all of them and ensure that my SIM card stays in my Windows phone 70% of the time ...

[zentechen]

What WP do you have? My Samsung Focus soft touch button is so sensitive that I hit those buttons by accident ALL THE TIME. That's just frustrating. I'd rather not having any button at all or replace those with press-down real buttons.

Having fewer buttons seem to make interface cleaner and less chance to screw up for users. But again it's a hardware issue for debate rather than software.

[contextfree]

Oh, I hate capacitive buttons too as do all right-thinking people, but I still vastly prefer the capacitive back button (on my Dell Venue Pro - not recommended, btw) over none at all. I don't really hit the buttons by accident myself, but this does seem to be a problem for new users (as I've discovered on the occasions where I lent my phone to someone who needed to make a call).

[sandipc]

Swiftkey is a decent android soft keyboard.