To be honest, I feel like in your minimalist efforts you have created an easy-to-draw-with app, but not necessarily one that's easy to use. The grabber should take you to something akin to an action sheet (no real minimalism inherent in that - design your own) and should have the save option inside there, instead of two different functions (one unintuitive without reading a description of the app, or you telling me on an internet forum).
Beyond that, I like the ease of drawing and the clean look of the app.
Yeah, I cringe at seeing a share sheet shown by a double-tap on a grabber. For one, I strongly expect share sheets on iOS to be shown only by the normal "share" icon; for another, I don't expect double-tapping on a grabber to do anything. Inherent in a grabber is its "grabbiness": it's something tactile that you drag, not something you tap on. (Yes, Chrome uses a clickable grabber-looking-thing for displaying a menu; that's unfortunate IMO.)
Additionally, having "Clear" as an option in a share sheet feels really wrong too.
If something acts differently than another thing, generally it should look different, too. This thing isn't a grabber (at least not as far as I'm aware of from having seen the linked page) and the thing that it shows isn't a share sheet.
I do definitely like the idea of a quick, minimal sketching app like this that ruthlessly eschews feature creep to do one job well. I think you're on the right track and am interested in getting this!
I downloaded the app and used it for a bit but wasn't able to figure out how to do anything besides clear the page by swiping the grabber up and so I deleted it. I hadn't read the website nor the app description and there was nothing in the app itself to indicate that I should double-tap to bring up the action sheet. (Note that in iOS in general double-tapping is typically used to zoom.)
Here are two possible solutions.
(a) on first launch show a modal dialog that says something like "double-tap the grabber to access the menu"
or maybe a better fix:
(b) have the options "behind" the paper so when the user slides the grabber up the options become visible, then if the user continues to swipe all the way up the screen, the drawing is cleared.
I'd love to chat with you about the app. Post a link to your twitter/email/smoke signal/etc if you're interested.
The double-click menu is a bit non-intuitive, but I think the issue stems more from the perceptual "flakiness" in its detection.
Also, rather than showing a modal dialog once/doing it "under the paper", I'd track an incomplete save to camera action (incomplete swipe/swipe in progress) (btw, awesome abstraction with the full swipe!) and showing the 100->0->100% alpha transition hint "doubleclick the = area for sharing options".
Other than that little glitch this is an _awesome_ app with no extra bells and whistles. Totally keeping it for my napkin sketches!
Thanks a lot. I do consider pull to save the primary action. Double tap or shake gives you the menu, but I agree this can be simpler. It would pain me to put instructions in the app though...
++ on the pull. What could help though is to display something transient-ish while you are "flipping the page" (to not present the direct modal choice, but to give a hint there's more). I am a relative noob in iOS coding, so not sure how easy it is.
The "real" problem that I perceived is the double-tap, and I have debugged my interaction a bit more.
What it looks like is that the triple-equal sign is a bit too small for my fat fingers. OTOH you do not want to waste the drawing space too much...
My thought would be: take a rectangle of 2x size the current triple-equal sign action area, then try to both use the drawing mechanism there, as well as to track the doubleclick-like events there - and if one happens, then undo the last drawing event (which was a part of the click, anyway).
I think this should make it easier for fatfingered people to deal with it :) And the translucent advertisement upon the swipe should take care of education, I think.
Thanks for offering solutions. It can be improved I agree. We had thought about some one off instructions like this and perhaps that's something we'll think about.
I know being minimalistic in your design is good but your app icon doesn't really benefit from being minimal. It needs to tell the user what the app does. I suggest having "Ink" in your icon using the same sketch style in your first screenshot.
I've been looking for an app like this, and it fits the bill. I'll admit that while I could sketch right away, it took me a second to learn how to clear the screen. I skimmed through the site, and didn't know to double tap the grabber, so I shook the phone, not expecting much. But I appreciate that that brought up the menu as well.
I like it. It does what it says. I can see myself using it for sketching out iPhone UI ideas because of it's size. And just quickly sketching something and sending it to friends. Thanks, keep up the good work!
I agree, I have no idea why someone would have this attitude when trying to sell something especially when it is perfectly reasonable to want an eraser on a sketch app.
One of the great things about computers is that we can sketch in an ink style and still be able to erase mistakes. Ironically, the style in the app seems to be more pencil than ink.
Edit: Just saw that this was not the OP's comment. Apologies.
I don't think wmeredith is the person who made it. (And the app is free.)
The issue with adding an eraser is that it would add a modality switch to an app that currently has only a single mode: you touch and it draws. If you have various modes, you'll probably end up needing an indicator for which mode you're in (and a cognitive burden, slight though it may be, of this modality). And, if you're gonna have all that, why not also allow various thicknesses of the drawing tool? And colors?
There are a million apps that do all those things, and rightly so: lots of people want all those things. But it seems to me that there's room for an app that tries to do what this one is doing, too: ruthlessly trade functionality for simplicity/minimalism. It isn't for everyone or for every use, by any means... but it's at the very least a good experiment. Maybe it's gone too far in the minimalist direction, but I bet it's exactly what some people want.
I understand that it is perfectly reasonable not to have an eraser in a sketch app but it is also perfectly reasonable want one. You have to see my comment in context (the incorrect assumption that the poster was the OP)
One of their stated goals was to eliminate all things unnecessary. Maybe the Ink/no eraser thing is part fo their product. It's for quick and dirty sketches/notes, no second drafts or masterpieces.
Ok - I'm curious why you couldn't have said that instead of leaving your initial snarky comment. This comment leads to a productive discussion - your initial comment was just a bit demeaning.
ok, without your website I wouldn't have figured out how to clear the canvas and while trying I only found out how to save the picture. I actually went back to the website to figure it out. Another thing i couldn't find is an eraser. If you screw up a tiny detail you have to start over. But I like the concept of quick ideas scribbled on anything you can get your hands on.
Shake is often used for undo, which may be a nice feature in keeping with the minimal feel -- you could even have an extra long shake prompt the user to see if they would like to clear all.
Beyond that, I like the ease of drawing and the clean look of the app.