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Spatial inconsistency of iOS 7

S

stooovie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 21, 2010
836
314
I really like the aesthetics of iOS 7.

But, there are some inconsistencies in underlying UI concepts (mainly multitasking-related) that make you appreciate the restrained simplicity of prior versions as well.

Exhibit A

Multitasking UI. Apps that are to the left in the multitasking view (the card view) are to the right when doing the 4-finger side gesture. Or the other way. Thing is, the spatial relations do not match in those two UI concepts.

Exhibit B

Swipe-up gesture. You would expect the card view to just slide upwards. But iOS 7 does this weird angled movement to the last opened app. This is behavioural consistency as it does the same thing as Home doubletap, but it's spatially weird and physically wrong. In prior verions, you directly manipulated the tray.

Exhibit C

Orientation issues. With live app previews in multitasking card view, you get wrongly oriented app previews if you rotate your device since you have last closed them. This is a repercussion of the whole live preview concept and AFAIK cannot be solved elegantly (you'd require apps to simulate a change of oerientation internally or something).

There have to be many more examples of this. UI design is tough. These seem like nitpicks, but issues like this DO add an additional cognitive load, something that was so low compared to other systems back in 2007. What do you guys think?
 
Last edited:
A) It probably works the same for everyone. doubleclick Home and go to your previously open app - it's now on the left. But if you'd use 4-finger swipe gesture instead of doubleclick, you'd need to swipe left (meaning the app is now to the RIGHT whereas in the cards view, it was to the LEFT. No spatial consistency.
 
stooovie said:
A) It probably works the same for everyone. doubleclick Home and go to your previously open app - it's now on the left. But if you'd use 4-finger swipe gesture instead of doubleclick, you'd need to swipe left (meaning the app is now to the RIGHT whereas in the cards view, it was to the LEFT. No spatial consistency.
Click to expand...

Yes, as soon as you try to introduce any sort of dimensionality, issues start getting compounded. Particularly with iOS 7, because they left the multitasking interactions and features untouched. I think it's odd that the app window opens and minimizes, but then in some zoomed out view it's to the left of the home screen page. Just doesn't really make sense.
 
stooovie said:
I really like the aesthetics of iOS 7.

But, there are some inconsistencies in underlying UI concepts (mainly multitasking-related) that make you appreciate the restrained simplicity of prior versions as well.

Exhibit A

Multitasking UI. Apps that are to the left in the multitasking view (the card view) are to the right when doing the 4-finger side gesture. Or the other way. Thing is, the spatial relations do not match in those two UI concepts.

Exhibit B

Swipe-up gesture. You would expect the card view to just slide upwards. But iOS 7 does this weird angled movement to the last opened app. This is behavioural consistency as it does the same thing as Home doubletap, but it's spatially weird and physically wrong. In prior verions, you directly manipulated the tray.

Exhibit C

Orientation issues. With live app previews in multitasking card view, you get wrongly oriented app previews if you rotate your device since you have last closed them. This is a repercussion of the whole live preview concept and AFAIK cannot be solved elegantly (you'd require apps to simulate a change of oerientation internally or something).

There have to be many more examples of this. UI design is tough. These seem like nitpicks, but issues like this DO add an additional cognitive load, something that was so low compared to other systems back in 2007. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

I think you must either be very sharp-eyed or have spent a long time looking at iOS7! :)
 
stooovie said:
I really like the aesthetics of iOS 7.

But, there are some inconsistencies in underlying UI concepts (mainly multitasking-related) that make you appreciate the restrained simplicity of prior versions as well.

Exhibit A

Multitasking UI. Apps that are to the left in the multitasking view (the card view) are to the right when doing the 4-finger side gesture. Or the other way. Thing is, the spatial relations do not match in those two UI concepts.

Exhibit B

Swipe-up gesture. You would expect the card view to just slide upwards. But iOS 7 does this weird angled movement to the last opened app. This is behavioural consistency as it does the same thing as Home doubletap, but it's spatially weird and physically wrong. In prior verions, you directly manipulated the tray.

Exhibit C

Orientation issues. With live app previews in multitasking card view, you get wrongly oriented app previews if you rotate your device since you have last closed them. This is a repercussion of the whole live preview concept and AFAIK cannot be solved elegantly (you'd require apps to simulate a change of oerientation internally or something).

There have to be many more examples of this. UI design is tough. These seem like nitpicks, but issues like this DO add an additional cognitive load, something that was so low compared to other systems back in 2007. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

What I dislike the most is that the cards dont seem to "lock" easily in place so every once in a while you will grab the limbo between 2 cards and swipe up to have nothing happen. I already e-mailed Apple a suggestion to allow us to swipe up the desktop card to "close all". I doubt it will make it into Final release but if it does cool.
 
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