I recently
bought an
Android tablet (Samsung
Galaxy tab 2).
This tablet gives me the opportunity to surf the
internet at home, the Ipad is always occupied by my wife and
children. I use computers mainly for programming, surfing and mail
(in that order). As I program for my living, the tablet is used
primarily for surfing the internet.
I was curious about the Android tablet. Initially I
did not knew the gesture controls that Google Labs provided in the
browser (it was disabled at default). At this time the internet
surfing was ok, though the system reacted a little slower compared to
the Ipad.
Then, one day, I discovered the gesture controls,
from this day on I loved to browse the internet! The reason: Google
Lab's Gesture Control.
Why I loved it:
- Navigation by the thumb: Our thumb is designed to move while your hand and wrist are in fixed position. On a tablet your fingers are on the back of the tablet, but your thumb is on the tablet screen. Making it easy to select and move while keeping a reading position.
- Pop-up of navigation: Just move your thumb from the side of your tabled into the border of your screen, the navigation will pop-up. There is no need to tick on the screen, just a gentle move of your thump make the navigation appear. As there are no icons/buttons in the browser, the screen is totally used for showing the page content.
- Icons navigation: The navigation items are icons, very understandable icons. And their layout is optimized for your thumb. The layout is based on a circle, very comfortable. Just slide your thumb in.
The Google Lab's Gesture Control was the reason I
like to browse the internet on the Android (better than the Ipad). I
expect that this functionality would be extended and would make its
way to other applications as well.
Then last Friday an update arrived on the Android
tablet. Immediately I noticed a change to the Gesture Control and
after two days experiencing with it, I know for sure: This version of
Gesture Control is a fiasco. The reason to use Android as my primary
surfing station has vanished.
Why I hate the new version:
- Navigation by the thumb: The icons have shrink but are too small to noticed under my (big) thumb. I regular choose the wrong icon. I can't see what I select. By this I had to use my (index) finger to navigate. Not my beloved thumb :-(
- Pop-up of navigation: The design change was made to extend the selection by clicking on the entry item. This was a natural change, and it is similar like the menu items in the menu bar, you click the entry File then the entries Open, Save .. will appear. But the entry item (the icon) in Gesture Control is the same as one of the next appearing entries. It is like a menu bar having entry Save, when you click on this, the file entries Open, Save … will appear. Same icon has different meaning in the interface. Very confusing for users. I even more selected the wrong item, it was hard to understand what options will appear next.
I hope Google will create a better next version of
Google Lab's Gesture Control. It is the future, I have seen that!
