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Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

jenson.org

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Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#391

Post by dleslie »

happymellon wrote: post #263
JamesLeonis wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s just not your typical consumer. My only disagreement. I think many people don't know they want something better because they've never used something better. The video in the link describes how the users do short texts to get around the problem [0], including deleting whole blocks of text instead of editing. Teenagers, parents, and many others communicate heavily through texts and are often "up and down" like m…

I miss my Blackberry for typing. The tactile feedback of real keys was so much better than haptic screens.

This is why I own a Titan Pocket. Physical keyboards are simply superior.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#395

Post by kelchm »

wizofaus wrote: post #389

No mention of "undo"? That's usually my biggest bug bear, no way to undo accidentally deleted/garbled edits. Oh and the fact that intended deletion of half a sentence via backspace often ends up deleting far more than intended.

Not sure about Android, but on iOS a three finger tap will bring up a contextual menu which allows undo and redo, among other actions.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#396

Post by justsomehnguy »

hollandheese wrote: post #347
skydhash wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember T9? I haven't much experience with it—I'm young. But it was a much more pleasant experience than the current experience with touch screen. Swiping works, but I feel it requires too much cognitive energy. As soon as a conversation is taking longer than this paragraph, I tend to call the person instead. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text)

T9 was so terrible I didn't use text messaging until I got my first iPhone. Actual Keyboard >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Touch screen typing >>>>>>> T9

T9 was terrible for you.

You could literally type the message without taking the phone out of the pocket because it was extremely predictable and you knew the menu structure by the gut.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#397

Post by rpz »

happymellon wrote: post #334
skydhash wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember T9? I haven't much experience with it—I'm young. But it was a much more pleasant experience than the current experience with touch screen. Swiping works, but I feel it requires too much cognitive energy. As soon as a conversation is taking longer than this paragraph, I tend to call the person instead. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T9_(predictive_text)

I got downvoted a lot when I mentioned missing T9 previously. It could be nostalgia, but I was pretty quick and generally accurate sending short messages. Not sure I would want to type a document on T9.

Agreed I remember being faster than my friends who preferred the “abc” mode. Not sure if all phones did this but my phones would sort the words by frequency of use for each combination of button presses so T9 kept getting faster the more I used it.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#398

Post by Nition »

> We saw this in our user testing when users tried to place the text cursor accurately: they would miss by a few characters...

One small thing: I don't know how it works on Android, but I used to have an N9 and then the Jolla phone and you could tap anywhere in text to place the cursor there.

iOS doesn't let you, except confusingly on the very first tap that activates the cursor. For subsequent taps, you can tap exactly where you want in the middle of a word and it always snaps the cursor to the start or end of that word.

I'm pretty good at aiming at the right character to edit even with big fingers on a small screen. Let me do it!

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#399

Post by asddubs »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #257

This is absolutely a problem, but I'm not convinced the author has found a solution. I'd have to try it to know for sure, but from the description, it still sounds finicky. I believe touch screens are fundamentally a bad interface for productivity. Consider the range of actions provided by a mouse: You can hover without clicking, you can left click, or you can right click, all with nearly pixel-level precision. Add i…

well yeah, a touchscreen is never going to be a keyboard, but that doesn't mean things couldn't be better

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#400

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

vicek22 wrote: post #376
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #370

I can buy into the fact that text editing on phones is a pain, but the solutions presented in the video seemed very unconvincing for me. The "only magnify in place" option is obviously a horrible idea. I don't know about you but my thumb is not transparent. The whole reason for moving the magnified piece off to the side is so that you can actually see it . The problem isn't as evident in the video because there is no…

> The "only magnify in place" option is obviously a horrible idea. I don't know about you but my thumb is not transparent. I think you misunderstood the proposed solution. If you look at the video, the magnification is offset. The improvement is that the cursor is only visible in the magnification.

But the only way to magnify the place where you just tapped (that is, inline, where the magnification shows where the text is on the page) as you drag would essentially be to not move the cursor as your finger moves (i.e. wait until your finger gets out of the way).

I don't even understand how this would work if you're dragging up (going to a previous point in the text).

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