Android UI and chat rooms/private conversations

[wms]

I've got a new release of the UI just about ready. Just need to take out some debugging log messages, test a small server change, and it's ready to go.

But I'm worried about one thing in the UI. I have one screen (called an "activity" in Android) that holds all chat rooms and private conversations; there's a combo box (incorrectly called a "spinner" by the Android libraries) that lets you select which one you see, and a second button that takes you to the next chat with new text for you to read. It all works very nicely and I'm pretty happy with the result.

But the problem has been, how to get to this screen? At any moment when using the client, you may want to hop over, chat a bit, then return to where you were. I tried adding a "chat rooms" menu item on every screen; but many menus are already full. I could add a "More..." to the menus with a popup for extra menu items, but that's so clumsy to use, it always annoys me when an app does this. The GUIs are even busier than the menus so adding a "chat rooms" button to each screen is a nonstarter. I did add a status bar notification when you have new chat; tapping this takes you to the new chat, but when nobody is talking but you want to say something, that doesn't help. Finally I settled on a solution that works really, really well...once you know about it. All you need to do is swipe left at any time to get to the chat rooms. Swiping right from the chat rooms (or pressing "back") will take you back to the previous screen. It feels great, like the chat rooms are always sitting there off to the side, you just drag them in to chat then push them back to return to the game you were watching or playing in.

But the problem is, how the hell are people supposed to figure out that they can do this? I added a line about it to each help text ("Like most of KGS, swiping left anywhere on the screen will bring up the chat rooms..."), but let's face it, 99% of the users never read the help texts. I added a note about this to the status bar notification, but most people don't read them either, and anyway until you go open up a chat room the status bar notification isn't going to appear. I'd hate to do away with this UI because it *FEELS* so right once you use it a bit, but I need to know a way to tell people about it.

Any suggestions?

[oren]

I've noticed some programs do a pop up on a new version install to tell you new features. Granted some people will still miss it, but it will help.

I'd also add it to the menu options and if people select it, also popup that you can just slide left or right to get there. Then add an option in the config to turn off that help.

[wms]

I've noticed some programs do a pop up on a new version install to tell you new features. Granted some people will still miss it, but it will help.

Yes I thought of this but then people who get it later won't see that.

I'd also add it to the menu options and if people select it, also popup that you can just slide left or right to get there. Then add an option in the config to turn off that help.

If I'm going to add a menu item then I don't really need the swiping any more. I like the swiping better even if there *IS* room in the menus, but the problem is that there just isn't room in the menus in a lot of places - I only get six menu items per screen!

I'm probably asking an impossible question. There is no good way to tell people about gestures. That's probably a big part of the reason why they aren't used so much.

All I can think of is as you log in have a "KGS Tip", one of which would be an animation of somebody swiping in the chat rooms. It usually takes about 2 or 3 seconds to log in via phone, so there's time for a quick little something. But what would the other ones be? What else is tricky in the client? And on top of that doing animations is *NOT* my strong point, so it would probably take several days of work.

Edit: Oh, I can think of another! I've met at least one person who used their trackpad to enter moves. Ugh! So maybe another little animation showing how you're supposed to push the red square around to make moves? But that's another animation, even more painful time consuming work...

[LocoRon]

How about changing the "landing page"?

Right now, after logging in, it takes me to one "play, open, or record" tabs (based on what I was at last, I guess). However, none of these are where I want to go (since I just use the app to watch games). Always having to "menu->watch game" is a little annoying.

A landing page with simple buttons for play, watch, chat, etc. would be a lot more convenient, and I can easily picture this as having some sort of hints about how to use the client. Either text, or little picture (like fingers or arrows pointing to either side indicating the swipe functionality). In fact, you might be able to just place those in the title bar during a game (where it says KGS: playera [-] vs. playerb [-]).

Regardless, this update sounds like it'll be great!

[Mef]

Either text, or little picture (like fingers or arrows pointing to either side indicating the swipe functionality). In fact, you might be able to just place those in the title bar during a game (where it says KGS: playera [-] vs. playerb [-]).

When reading the initial post, this is the first thing that came to mind for me. It might be easier if you changed the swipe directions, but in that blue title bar on every screen maybe just put a right-justified thing that says "Chat >" ?

[yoyoma]

Force users to swipe left or right as the first action after logging in? So when you first login, text says "swipe right to go to chat, swipe left to go to games". You can't leave the page without doing one of these two things.

[wms]

OK, some good ideas.

About changing the landing page: It was always supposed to remember the last screen you were on and return you there (or as close as it can come). So if you were watching a game when you last logged out, it was supposed to bring you to the game list when you log in next. But there was a bug; the latest release fixed the bug though and I think it works now. LocoRon, are you sure that it still takes you to the wrong place on startup? As for changing the landing page, taking you somewhere with simple buttons, I like taking you back to where you were last better. That way you should just log in and usually already be doing what you want to do, with no extra steps.

Something in the title bar might work. "Swipe to chat>" would fit next to "KGS" but not next to a game title. Still, if it just appears sometimes, that might give people the hint. The only drawback is that it would need to be what's called a "custom title", which takes a bit of coding, but not so much I suppose. That might be good.

About taking you to a screen that says "swipe left to play/right to chat," again that adds another step each time you log in, I'd rather not do that.

And lastly, it sort of has to stay "swipe left to chat"/"right to get out." Because on Android 1.5, adding a new screen on top of the current one will *ALWAYS* come in from the right, and going back will always bring in the old screen from the left. In later versions I can change the direction, but in 1.5 it isn't possible, and I can see in my logs a bunch of android 1.5 logins. Sweeping left only feels natural when the chat screen then gets pulled in by the direction you moved your finger.

Thanks again for the idea. The title bar idea seems most likely. I'll look into it. And if that has problems once it's implemented (looks bad, doesn't fit on the title bar, whatever), then I'll probably go back to my "Logging in, here's a tip..." idea.

[LocoRon]

About changing the landing page: It was always supposed to remember the last screen you were on and return you there (or as close as it can come). So if you were watching a game when you last logged out, it was supposed to bring you to the game list when you log in next. But there was a bug; the latest release fixed the bug though and I think it works now. LocoRon, are you sure that it still takes you to the wrong place on startup? As for changing the landing page, taking you somewhere with simple buttons, I like taking you back to where you were last better. That way you should just log in and usually already be doing what you want to do, with no extra steps.

I just tested this (using version 3.4.14). It looks like it will remember which tab I was at for Play/Open/Record, and start back at that tab, but never at the Active/Fan games list (although, it does remember which of those I was at, after I press "menu->watch game").

...Well, ok. After numerous tests in which that was always happening, it is now logging in directly to the active games list. Why it wasn't earlier, I don't know. I'm not gonna complain, though.

(And after a reboot just to triple check, it seems to be holding. Yay!)

[wms]

Well, it's out. And I decided to use text "tips" to show while logging in. Putting more info in the status bar just looked weird. And I don't have time to do animations for swiping, etc. But the text tip is OK. There are only two, but I will add more...for example, the long clicks are hard to find also, I'll probably add a tip for each of those.

Will people read the tips? Not sure, but maybe!

[ChradH]

You mean the tip during login? I really tried but it was gone too fast

Thanks for adding chat! I have some difficulties choosing rooms from the room list, though. It doesn't scroll down when swiped (Galaxy Tab). Am I doing something wrong?

At least the font is _very_ readable ;-)

SC20110413-210507.png (30.81 KiB) Viewed 12173 times

[oren]

I updated but still can't seem to get to chat rooms. Tried swiping left, right, and any direction.

[wms]

You mean the tip during login? I really tried but it was gone too fast

Thanks for adding chat! I have some difficulties choosing rooms from the room list, though. It doesn't scroll down when swiped (Galaxy Tab). Am I doing something wrong?

SC20110413-210507.png

A few people have reported this. I don't yet know what it is, but I'll work on it tonight. So far everybody who reported this has been on a newish Android firmware, *AND* on a non-English locale. Not sure yet which is the problem, but I can test both of those cases in the emulator and hopefully it will turn up.

And it's so weird to have the font so damn big...that's just a standard Android expandable list item. No clue why it would look bad like that.

[wms]

I updated but still can't seem to get to chat rooms. Tried swiping left, right, and any direction.

It should be swiping left. In any screen. Check and make sure you have 3.4.15, and try swiping left any time after logging in...you need to swipe most of the way across the screen.

[Mef]

You mean the tip during login? I really tried but it was gone too fast

Thanks for adding chat! I have some difficulties choosing rooms from the room list, though. It doesn't scroll down when swiped (Galaxy Tab). Am I doing something wrong?

SC20110413-210507.png

A few people have reported this. I don't yet know what it is, but I'll work on it tonight. So far everybody who reported this has been on a newish Android firmware, *AND* on a non-English locale. Not sure yet which is the problem, but I can test both of those cases in the emulator and hopefully it will turn up.

And it's so weird to have the font so damn big...that's just a standard Android expandable list item. No clue why it would look bad like that.

I have a similar issue with swiping not scrolling the list, also sometimes it's difficult for me to get a swipe to move between chat rooms and games list (could be my own swiping deficiencies). If I use arrow keys on a slide out keyboard, it navigates the room list just fine though (Android 2.2, English locale).

Also adding chat room functionality to the KGS app means that my productivity and phone battery life are now both going to drop significantly (=

Edit/update: it looks like the difficulty going to chat from games list was more related to the fact that I would slightly diagonally swipe and scroll the game list instead of summoning the chat window....so you can probably ignore that one...

[oren]

It should be swiping left. In any screen. Check and make sure you have 3.4.15, and try swiping left any time after logging in...you need to swipe most of the way across the screen.

Figured it out and eems to work ok now. Could you have it automatically grab our room list like the desktop client does?