current status Contour - activating/opening a resource with an arrow

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Saturday, June 18, 2011 11:08:20 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> often is selection needed? If selection is not needed often, I'd suggest
> doung things the other way around: For example first tap the "share" button
> which puts you in "select mode" (this would have to be indicated visually)
> in which you select things with a single tap instead of opening them. In
> the "normal mode" single-tapping would open.

consider using this interface as a non-expert.

scenario one: using SLC with contour

* i'm viewing a resource, let's say an image
* i want to share it, and my locus of attention is on the image
* i press "share"

.. nothing happens ..

is it broken? do i need to select something? this is solvable by showing 
direction to the user at this point: "Select what you would like to share." 
ok, so the user is guided to the right action, however now i've shifted my 
attention from the item at hand to the action back to the item and now i have 
to go back to the action to fill in details like the added message.

compared to just hitting the action and continuing there, this is really not 
great.

scenario two: using SLC with mapping

* i'm viewing a map in Marble
* i want to share it, and my locus of attention is on the map
* i press "share"

now what happens? does the user have to re-press the map afterwards? that 
seems .. gratuitous. not to mention that it means that marble now needs to be 
heavily patched to handle a different user interaction pattern ONLY when SLC 
is activated. which means SLC needs to tell marble (and all other apps!) when 
it is active, and then we need to make sure that if anything happens to SLC 
during that interaction (e.g. it is somehow removed) that the app doesn't get 
'stuck' in that mode. 

then we'd have the fun questions like what if they press on a different town 
on the map? do we share that location? do we share the map that was active 
when SLC was activated?

having a back-and-forth interaction seems frought with:

* annoyance for the user (back and forth between content and action)

* very high technological barriers (heavy patching of all apps, probably in 
ways most app maintainers won't accept; i know i wouldn't if e.g. marble was 
my app)

* all whole new bunch of interaction questions

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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