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This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

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Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#31

Post by nchlswu »

buster wrote: post #14

Hate the button on the left side. Usage on a 4,7" phone is not possible with one hand.

this is actually a great point. Presumably, the top left corner was used because that is the placement for the "back" or "previous" button.

Unfortunately, the back button was placed there because it is just out of reach for most users to prevent accidental taps. Now that you bring it up, since some of these sliders are actually used quite often it doesn't quite make sense to have these menus exclusively triggered by a button in the top left.

I guess it could have also been due to the resemblance to a menu and most "file" commands were traditionally in the top left.

Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#34

Post by jcromartie »

allwein wrote: post #24
freehunter wrote: post #4

Not having an iPhone: how do you access this side navigation? I don't immediately see any clues in the app. Is it the buttons near the top (three horizontal lines)? That being said, it kind of reminds me of Windows Phone's swipe to the side. Windows Phone does give clues that there's more to the page by cutting off part of the edge. This is the default design language for Windows Phone. On the iPhone, it almost looks…

It's actually really simple. There's actually two different modes, but they're accomplished the same way. One is that menu is off screen and slides in to overlap the normal view. The second is the the view is in the background, and the normal view slides off to reveal the menu. In both cases, you simply have a front view and a rear view. All you need to do is adjust the frame (positioning) of one of the views and ani…

Come on, there's a little more to it than that... nested view controllers and all.

Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#35

Post by jcromartie »

This is a great trend. I just implemented it in two apps (iOS and Android). The only time I tolerate tab bars anymore is if it's a reader-type app that hides the nav and tab bars when you start reading.

Why have a 40pt-high bar on screen all the time, when you usually have more than 4 sections anyway? And tab bars don't work on iPad at all, anyway.

Android's action bar is a bit better than iOS tab bars though, and I feel like Android tablets can actually get away with that quite well, without resorting to side nav. But if you're going to be consistent, you might as well use side nav across iOS and Android for all device types. It's worked really well for me so far.

Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#36

Post by jcromartie »

buster wrote: post #14

Hate the button on the left side. Usage on a 4,7" phone is not possible with one hand.

Android's tab UI (in the ActionBar) already has this problem. And iOS has always used the upper-left for the navigation bar's "back" button anyway. The menu button is just a different sort of back button when you're at the top of a particular hierarchy.

So, yes, we're asking the user to move a bit more, but I wouldn't call it impossible. Making a completely one-handed UI would mean breaking a lot of conventions.

Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#37

Post by robspychala »

nicholassmith wrote: post #28

Out of curiosity which came first, side nav in Path or side nav in Facebook? I've been trying to figure it out for a while, or am I off base and someone else did it first and they just took it and ran? I think it's an interesting trend, definitely a good use of space. Slightly bored of just seeing black ones pop out so it's nice seeing people use it to fit in with the app theme or leverage additional content in there…

facebook was 1st I believe

Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#38

Post by ScottWhigham »

The only app where, to me, this type of navigation has been a hinderance is on Remember The Milk (RTM). The older interface was much easier to use - swipe/tap/type and you were done. Now I have to swipe/tap/swipe/tap/type to accomplish the same things. Probably just a UI/UX issue but it was clearly one of those, "Hey - Facebook is using this new strategy so we want to do it too!" things rather than a features-first type of overhaul.

Re: This year's iPhone design trend: Side navigation

#40

Post by bunderbunder »

mattmaroon wrote: post #5

I first noticed this on Android. Dolphin Browser has done this for years now. Swipe to the left side (by swiping right) to get to bookmarks, etc. Swipe to the right side to get to add ons.

Latest version of Dolphin (on iOS, anyway) remixes this a bit. Swiping left still goes to bookmarks. But now swiping right goes to tabs. There's a button bar on the bottom, and a navbar on the top. Both of these automatically disappear when you scroll down, and automatically reappear when you scroll up.

Still getting used to it, but my initial impression is that it's a pretty slick interface.

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