So i just bought Asus rog phone 6d and im extremely bothered by the lack of the back ,home and whatewer is the 3 one called buttons on the news androids. Is this something you all got used to with time or does this still bother you( IT really fells much less intuitive compared to the old 3 buttons ,alghtough preferably i would love to have both since the back gesture seems kinda usefull )?
I think there’s a setting to bring back the buttons, if you want that.
Settings -> System -> Gestures -> System navigation
Yeah this is what I do. I tried gestures but I really prefer the buttons.
There’s two of us! Really the minority in this thread. For me there was no guide so i was extremely confused at first. Then I found it interfered with one of my most used apps that featured similar gestures so I turned it off and never went back.
I’m still using buttons too. I never understood why people would want universal gestures for back and home while using apps that are also controlled by gestures. Just give me the dedicated buttons.
My phone offers gestures but not by default and I’ve got zero interest. I’m really glad it’s an option and I hate all the companies that think they know better than all their users and force their visions on them.
Yeah, totally this! Also, I’m just super uncoordinated and I was constantly swiping in slightly the wrong direction so it never did what I wanted it to do. You know where you stand with a button 😆
Just stick with the gestures for a week or so. You’ll get used to it. Wouldn’t want to go back to the button row anymore.
I’ve tried, it’s not for me, I’m always accidentally swiping.
Same for me, I think there are a lot of us 😀
I just haven’t been able to get use to gestures instead of the buttons.
Hello fellow cat! Correction fellow lazy cat
😺😴
Oh my God, thank you. I hate the gestures. I’m constantly going back when I’m just trying to scroll or turn pages
Just upgraded my phone and found this setting myself. Thank god you can change it back to the 3 buttons.
Definitely try gestures.
Being able to “go back” from a gentle swipe at any height is a blessing for the small hand. The rest of options are really, really intuitive.
Unless you have some mobility issues, you’ll never come back after a week.
i’ve no mobility issues, but i can’t stand that back gesture. it interferes with the ability to open drawers; and i can’t spam it quickly to get out of a “deep” page in an app
gestures do have pros (for instance, the ability to hold and scroll through recents) but the back gesture just seems straight up worse to me
it interferes with the ability to open drawers
It’s funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven’t come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn’t really “officially” recommended?
Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn’t that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn’t interfere with the system gestures
It’s funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven’t come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn’t really “officially” recommended?
i found this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140110123608/developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation-drawer.html (alternative link in case archive.org is down) - i presume they removed it from the old spec when they introduced the gesture navigation, so people don’t use it because it interferes with the gestures?wait never mind i misread this paragraph. i presume it wasn’t in the design spec as a) it’s an interaction behaviour, not a visual design behaviour, and b) it was also a thing in holo design (& older[?]), so they didn’t consider it part of the “material design spec”?
Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn’t that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn’t interfere with the system gestures
it’s not a bad idea if you’re working around gestures, but it means you can’t have something where you swipe between tabs when not from the edge, and get the drawer when from the edge
or, for example, swiping to reply/forward in a messaging app, or upvote/downvote on a lemmy client
(also, subjectively, it’s kind of a bit ugly)
i presume it wasn’t in the design spec as a) it’s an interaction behaviour, not a visual design behaviour, and b) it was also a thing in holo design (& older[?]), so they didn’t consider it part of the “material design spec”?
Yesn’t. Material Design 1 and 2 guidelines have a bunch of sections regarding interaction, way more than M3 (although M3 guidelines aren’t “finished” yet), but they lack a section regarding that gesture in particular.
Like, M1 guidelines mention swiping on content to swap tabs, heck, you can even find the same on the current Material Design 3 guidelines
I think it was a conscious design decision from the Material Design team to not use that gesture in particular? Because it isn’t due to conflict with other components, in the tab guidelines they call attention to be careful when the content itself is swipeable.
it’s not a bad idea if you’re working around gestures, but it means you can’t have something where you swipe between tabs when not from the edge, and get the drawer when from the edge
or, for example, swiping to reply/forward in a messaging app, or upvote/downvote on a lemmy client
(also, subjectively, it’s kind of a bit ugly)
I mean, you already can’t have certain gestures with other gestures. Like you can’t (or shouldn’t) have swipe on a card to upvote at the same time you have swipe content to change tabs. I’d argue this restriction is better for the user because with discord’s implementation it is very clear what the trigger area is, because the entire view is the trigger area.
Yesn’t. Material Design 1 and 2 guidelines have a bunch of sections regarding interaction, way more than M3 (although M3 guidelines aren’t “finished” yet), but they lack a section regarding that gesture in particular.
Like, M1 guidelines mention swiping on content to swap tabs, heck, you can even find the same on the current Material Design 3 guidelines
fair enough. although in that specific example you could construe that as a warning of unforeseen conflicts, rather than a recommendation to implement swipe gestures. like, it doesn’t say “use swipe gestures for navigating between tabs”, it just mentions it as though it’s something the dev should already know (in the m1 guidelines, not m3 i guess)
I think it was a conscious design decision from the Material Design team to not use that gesture in particular? Because it isn’t due to conflict with other components, in the tab guidelines they call attention to be careful when the content itself is swipeable.
possibly? although i still maintain it’s likely that they saw it as part of holo, so there was no need to respecify it for md? the same that they don’t specify that you can scroll down to move the content field? especially as all of google’s own apps supported that gesture
I mean, you already can’t have certain gestures with other gestures. Like you can’t (or shouldn’t) have swipe on a card to upvote at the same time you have swipe content to change tabs.
yes; but my point is that it reduces the available actions for no discernible benefit. it’s not like they’ve added some spare buttons in the old place, like maybe bringing back the old universal menu button.
I’d argue this restriction is better for the user because with discord’s implementation it is very clear what the trigger area is, because the entire view is the trigger area.
maybe? i’m not sure about that though, as the hamburger button is on that side, and the drawer appears there; and i’d say “the edge from whence the drawer appears” is a lot clearer than “just any old fucking where”, but maybe that’s me
Alright, but wasn’t the tab gesture also available on the holo era?
yes; but my point is that it reduces the available actions for no discernible benefit. it’s not like they’ve added some spare buttons in the old place, like maybe bringing back the old universal menu button.
The benefit is less conflicting gesture triggers occupying the same area. A swipeable card/list-item has the entire card/list-card as the visible trigger. A Tab has the entire content as the trigger area. The Navigation Drawer gesture is an invisible area that can be placed on top of the visible triggers of other components.
maybe? i’m not sure about that though, as the hamburger button is on that side, and the drawer appears there; and i’d say “the edge from whence the drawer appears” is a lot clearer than “just any old fucking where”, but maybe that’s me
The issue is that the hamburger button is not the only button that can appear in that that place, a back button is common on that same area. The trigger area isn’t the width of a button, but the width of a very specific button, and worse, it extends far beyond the edges of the button and shares the same height as the screen.
I do see your point that “anywhere” isn’t an improvement, but I have to disagree, as that is fundamentally the same gesture to swap tabs, and you can predict the area trigger as being “just any old fucking where”.
Alright, but wasn’t the tab gesture also available on the holo era?
honestly i couldn’t say with absolute certainty, but i don’t think so?
The benefit is less conflicting gesture triggers occupying the same area. A swipeable card/list-item has the entire card/list-card as the visible trigger. A Tab has the entire content as the trigger area. The Navigation Drawer gesture is an invisible area that can be placed on top of the visible triggers of other components.
i’m not entirely sure that i’m following this correctly, but assuming i am: it’s the same number of gesture triggers
- old design
- swipe from edge: nav drawer
- swipe from anywhere: switch tabs (or whatever)
- tap back btn: navigate back
- your design
- swipe from edge: navigate back
- swipe from anywhere: nav drawer
- missing input: switch tabs (or whatever)
The issue is that the hamburger button is not the only button that can appear in that that place, a back button is common on that same area.
that’s a fair criticism
The trigger area isn’t the width of a button, but the width of a very specific button, and worse, it extends far beyond the edges of the button and shares the same height as the screen.
this i’m also not sure what you’re saying? it seems like a good thing to me - it takes up no space, and can be accessed from any height
I do see your point that “anywhere” isn’t an improvement, but I have to disagree, as that is fundamentally the same gesture to swap tabs, and you can predict the area trigger as being “just any old fucking where”.
i wasn’t strictly saying that, i was more refuting what i thought your point was: that “it’s not a discoverable gesture unless it’s tutorialised, because most people won’t randomly swipe in from the edge”; which i think in most instances is a very fair point, but in this specific instance i think it is discoverable because the drawer pulls in from the side. (source: i discovered it without a tutorial, or reading the md docs)
- old design
You just made me try it out, it’s… Interesting. Hard to get used to, but I like the extra screen space.
Give it a week. You shortly will not go back.
Unfortunately, I will in fact unintentionally go back every 5 seconds because it always misfires.
Pretty sure you can still enable 3 button navigation in settings. I still use it
I had that for about half an hour, but I wouldn’t want to switch back. Gestures all the time
Took me awhile to get used to gesture, but can’t go back now. The only thing that still bothers me is the old UX of the slide out side menus was clearly overlooked with gesture navigation and is really awkward.
I’ll never forget the day I realized my reddit app (Relay for Reddit) had a drawer that pulled out by just sliding your finger to the right from anywhere on the screen. As long as you didn’t slide from the left edge, it pulled the drawer out. Why we don’t make that the default is beyond me.
It’s possible to adjust it so you have three little buttons but you can also use gestures from those buttons. Not the sides. I used to use that setup for a long time but know I’m just using the regular gestures for now. By the way I’m on a Samsung Galaxy S20.
These settings are samsung specific. Samsung had optional gesture navigation before it was in android. Different gestures though (the 3 button swipe from the bottom option). So nowadays you can choose between the old style samsung gestures, the android gestures and toggle the button row on or off on samsung phones.
Interesting. I assumed it was an Android feature rather than Samsung.
I used a phone without gestures the other day and had such a hard time with it, it was crazy how unintuitive the buttons felt in comparison to the gestures!
The simple fact is, neither is actually all that intuitive, they’re learned, but gestures definitely get to be very convenient and a much quicker form of navigation.
I would definitely not want to go back.
It’s funny, if you swap gestures with buttons in your post, I’d agree 100% lol
@Vlhacs Yeah, like I said, we call things intuitive without realizing that nothing in this is intuitive at all, it’s all learned behavior.
For me now, swiping at the edges of the screen makes complete sense and needing to go to a certain place at the bottom of the phone to go back was weird because “why would I go to the bottom of the screen to go backwards, that doesn’t make sense”, but it was definitely a learning curve to get to this point!
With all that said, hell, there are still times I really miss the old trackball and full keyboard from the OG G1 (the dedicated hardware button for the camera was nice too, but double tap power isn’t terrible). I wouldn’t want to give up screen space for the trackball, but damn if it didn’t really help with fine navigation and using the phone in the cold!
Different strokes for different folks, I’m just glad we’ve got options so we can all be (mostly) happy with how things work!
I remember it is especially intuitive when it goes full screen in landscape mode, like I think it needs one swipe and then choosing the needed button (it is better to swipe twice) or deal with the space occupied by the Android buttons on the right edge of your screen… iugh.
I jumped to the Android bandwagon later (2020) and as I came from iOS I never used them, but I tried them anyway… And they are not for me…
initially I didn’t like the gesture controls but they really are better than having buttons wasting space and burning in the screen
Can’t agree. I thought they sucked. I gave it two weeks but it just felt worse to me.
Is burn-in really an issue? I’ve never noticed it on any of my OLED devices
maybe not these days
I really wanted to like gestures. I used them for over a year.
Even after all that, switching back bottom navigation immediately felt right.I’m so used to gestures I can barely use a phone with button navigation. When I have to help my parents/grandparents with their smartphones I take longer just because they use buttons lol.
Also the 3 button navigation is not gone afaik. All OEMs I’ve used have it buried in the settings somewhere.
I loved Android’s 3 button nav for years but after like a week of using gestures I couldn’t go back. Once I got the hang of it, it was way more fluid feeling to use.
I like both but use gestures because I don’t want to lose screen space on the bottom. I like full screen apps
Nah, I love gestures. It’s so quick to go back just by swiping left or right.
Haven’t used the 3 buttons navigation since 2016 or 2017
Had the same initial reaction to Pixel. But its really grown on me. The swipe to go back is awesome. Having said that, there is a setting to get the buttons back, in case this doesn’t grow on you
