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Chonky Menu Re-Creation

nathanmanousos.com

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Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#61

Post by andrepd »

Izkata wrote: post #16
mark242 wrote: post #13

This is great -- all the way up to the point where you have to hold and drag. The usability on a laptop goes out the window as you realize you can't accelerate past the edge of your touchpad. Getting to the top item in the menu -- maybe even the most important item -- is extremely hard. You rapidly become limited to the number of items you can have in this menu. Tap-or-swipe-to-open, and tap-or-swipe-to-close have ra…

> The usability on a laptop goes out the window as you realize you can't accelerate past the edge of your touchpad. Getting to the top item in the menu -- maybe even the most important item -- is extremely hard. You rapidly become limited to the number of items you can have in this menu. Not really. Put a second finger at the bottom of the touchpad, then release the first finger (without dragging while both fingers a…

I do that, and it's always a fiddly manoeuvre. Far from usable.

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#62

Post by andrepd »

trafnar wrote: post #26
zfxfr wrote: post #5

IMHO it seems to me overly complicated. Also it doesn't work on mobile / tablet Android. you can display the menu but once you release the button it dissapear

Ah sorry, I don't have any Android devices so I haven't tested it on that platform!

As a tangent, it's sad that that mentality is often used when designing actual systems for end users! (not relevant here because this is just a fun project)

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#64

Post by trafnar »

andrepd wrote: post #60
mark242 wrote: post #13

This is great -- all the way up to the point where you have to hold and drag. The usability on a laptop goes out the window as you realize you can't accelerate past the edge of your touchpad. Getting to the top item in the menu -- maybe even the most important item -- is extremely hard. You rapidly become limited to the number of items you can have in this menu. Tap-or-swipe-to-open, and tap-or-swipe-to-close have ra…

As always, "designers" are optimising for what looks cool and fancy subjectively to them, rather than optimising for usability. In their defence, the latter is much harder :)

If you look at my other work you'll see that I'm like the polar opposite of a designer that does things that look cool and fancy rather than optimizing for usability.

This was meant as a study in how to do certain types of fluid animations.

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#65

Post by trafnar »

andrepd wrote: post #62
trafnar wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah sorry, I don't have any Android devices so I haven't tested it on that platform!

As a tangent, it's sad that that mentality is often used when designing actual systems for end users! (not relevant here because this is just a fun project)

Thanks for understanding!

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#66

Post by trafnar »

thekombustor wrote: post #56
trafnar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it would certainly need to be (and readily could be) optimized if used in production.

Thanks for the reply. A quick comment on UX - my laptop is old (see: the aforementioned ancient processor), and these types of menus are extremely inefficient for screen real-estate. On a 1366x768 display, most modern webapps/applications simply need that full screen real estate. They become unusable if you try to split in either direction (which I want to do oh so often, using a tiling window manager). Even when giv…

Yeah, I totally get what you mean. I was focused on recreating the effects in original menu that this was inspired by, which was meant for mobile, so the context is very different.

If I was making something like this for use in a real desktop/web app, I'd certainly approach it differently.

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#67

Post by beAbU »

trafnar wrote: post #31
beAbU wrote: post #3

Doesn't work for me on Android. Tried Edge, Crome and FF. The moment I move my finger the page scrolls and the menu collapses.

Sorry! You can watch a video version of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VgrdLfDozo

I'm a little tickled by your response. You are sending me a video of how a user interface element is supposed to work, because the element is failing its most basic function: actually working.

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#68

Post by benj111 »

mark242 wrote: post #13

This is great -- all the way up to the point where you have to hold and drag. The usability on a laptop goes out the window as you realize you can't accelerate past the edge of your touchpad. Getting to the top item in the menu -- maybe even the most important item -- is extremely hard. You rapidly become limited to the number of items you can have in this menu. Tap-or-swipe-to-open, and tap-or-swipe-to-close have ra…

Well the demo didn't work on my phone, because I just scrolled the page.

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#69

Post by CapstanRoller »

Side question: is there a recommended method to prototype such UI demos and examples as seen on this page? Some kind of library?

I've seen a number of similar things in the past and wondered if there was a way to quickly test a UI idea using helpful building blocks.

Re: Chonky Menu Re-Creation

#70

Post by TeMPOraL »

Izkata wrote: post #58
elliottkember wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to explain how to use it…

The simple version would be "finger crawling", like you're dragging a piece of paper. I think it is intuitive, it just seems to need more explicit instruction for people nowadays who never really did arts and crafts as kids, and built their understanding on new non-physical conventions instead (like three-finger gestures as in the other reply - I find those weird, not at all intuitive, and sometimes difficult to do b…

Not sure what "finger crawling" is, but surely the point still applies that touchpad is not a table, and you quickly run out of space to drag stuff with your finger.
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