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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

#511

Post by MattRix »

awinter-py wrote: post #506
MattRix wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think autocorrect is overrated and actually makes the typing process much more annoying. Also I’m not sure if 55wpm is supposed to be fast or not? I just did a typing test (monkeytype.com) on my iPhone and got 80 wpm with 0 mistakes, and I don’t use autocorrect.

1) impressive, 2) try without looking

Just tried and got 72wpm with 97% accuracy without looking… though honestly I think not looking is a bit pointless, since the keyboard is so close to the text anyway. It’s not nearly as jarring as looking at your keyboard when typing on a desktop.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#512

Post by throwaway290 »

> This creates our first ambiguity. The text handle is itself a tap target. Unfortunately, so is the text surrounding it. We now have two potential tap targets. When they are far apart, it’s fine. The problem only occurs when I want to tap just to the left or right of the text cursor. In this case, it’s unclear what the user wants: to move the cursor or to tap/drag the handle.

This used to work perfectly on iOS until iOS 17. You could hold and drag text handle or you could double tap to select text around it and then drag selection handles. Now select-dragging a handle in place was made impossible, I don't know why.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#513

Post by cimbal »

Nition wrote: post #398

> 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 exac…

There are 3 ways to position the cursor on iOS in normal input fields: 1. long tap 2. long tap on spacebar 3. move 2 fingers simultaneously on the iPad virtual keyboard (iPad only). For all the frustration i had with the iOS keyboard, it‘s actually quite good. Real problems are often created by 3d-Party JavaScript tools, a old version of codemirror for example.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#514

Post by glandium »

bombela wrote: post #461
numpad0 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "on Android", it's whichever keyboard came with your phone. On iOS extremely small number of people use non-standard keyboard(it was later allowed), but on Android the keyboard was always an app and there are many.

It's the Google keyboard on a Google phone. Out of the box experience.

The Google keyboard on a Google phone for some locales can be very different. Notably, the keyboard for Japanese doesn't do the spacebar thing, on the other hand, it contains actual keys to move left and right.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#515

Post by scottjenson »

jzb wrote: post #219

I 100% agree with this. My teen, OTOH, refuses to use a keyboard to write papers or do anything. She finds it completely normal and preferable to write on her phone. To me this feels like using a hammer to chop wood, but it's her native input method. Allegedly this is standard in her age group. Makes me wonder about the next few waves of people entering the workforce and whether they're going to hate using keyboards…

This is exactly the point I tried to make in the paper. Teens are using the phone and that's fine, but if you watch them, it's horribly inefficient. I'm not saying stop using the phone, I'm saying your kid can be far more productive.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#516

Post by scottjenson »

chrnola wrote: post #308

This bit is no longer entirely accurate: > For highly proficient users, this gets even worse as their is no command key equivalents for cut, copy, or paste. […] Part of the unspoken reason desktop clipboard use is so high is the speed in which it can be used. Mobile has none of this. I recently discovered [1] that iOS has several three-finger pinch/swipe gestures for copy, paste, cut, undo, and redo. Apparently these…

That's a fair point, thank you for bringing that up (I'm the author) While these are certainly helpful, the fact that almost no one knows about this proves they aren't really working all that well. Discovery is a key issue that can't be ignored.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#517

Post by scottjenson »

iainmerrick wrote: post #326

Whenever I explain my research at Google into mobile text editing, I’m usually met with blank stares [...long and detailed description of the problems and how their research attempts to solve them...] Unfortunately, shipping something like Eloquent would be challenging. What a strange attitude to take! What’s the point of the research if it’s not aimed at shipping anything? Hopefully this is just a miscommunication a…

Passive agressive? (I'm the author) I did research to find a better solution. I did and discovered a wide range of market forces (e.g. people don't like to change) that will make it difficult to ship.

But the last thing I intended was to imply giving up. I said very clearly in the post that my solution, Eloquent, was meant to be one possible solution. There are likely many others! My goal of this post was to clearly describe the problem so people a) understood b) knew there were alternatives and c) we could get fired up to actually solve this (even though it WILL be hard to change)

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#518

Post by chris37879 »

akdor1154 wrote: post #445
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…

The first gen or so of Android phones had an optical 'trackpad' below the screen, some were terrible but some were really good, allowing far more precise cursor movement than a touchscreen. I wish this feature had survived, it was awesome for text editing.

It did in a fashion, on my Fold 5, for instance, I can half fold it and get a trackpad on the bottom half of the screen, which is great! I wish that was just a general toggle between "direct touch" and "screen as trackpad with a cursor" that'd be just grand.

Re: Text editing on mobile: the invisible problem

#520

Post by sundvor »

rjh29 wrote: post #120
bmacho wrote: post #43

Use a keyboard app with arrows. My choice is "Hacker's keyboard" [0] but I think there are others. (Search reddit for best keyboards with arrows.) I can't say more about it, text editing is not a problem on mobile. It's ok. I installed, then I forgot. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketwork...

Samsung keyboard has a hard to find "Text editing" tab with arrows.

I use Google Keyboard on my S21 Ultra; it's just behind the hamburger menu there - and it works really well.
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