Visual design. Discussing ideas for the future

Design
#27

I have a great idea, unified home, lock and app screen, where lock screen > swipe up > home screen > swipe up > app grid, and the same for the contrary, then you add swiping for action to app covers

On a serious note, no, sailfish is already perfect as it is, if they can’t give me back sailfish 1 then just leave it how it is

There is just one thing i might (and i say might") want to change : sometimes i need to open the quick settings menu but it’s too far from my finger so i need to take the phone two hands and swipe from the upper border. Would it be nice if it was from the lower border, but i don’t know if i would trade the ability to have the app grid always openable as it’s really that handy

On a sidenote, no please no damn material design here, it’s really that ugly, and no classic keyboard, android has always being damn ugly, sailfish could teach them a thing or two in style, especially from icons

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#28

No pun intended but yes i wan’t to know, cause i’m one of the people that think that sf1 wasn’t broken so no need to fix it :slight_smile:

#29

Something simillar was in SFOS 1.xx, lockscreen above homescreen so swipe down from homescreen = fluently go to lockscreen.

#30

I would like pulley to be triggered with a dedicated gesture, distinct from regular scrolling. Ex, vertical swipe along one border.
Reasons:

  • avoid the need to scroll up to the top/bottom of pages for just pulling the pulley
  • avoid unwanted pulled pulleys when swiping at the top/bottom

If possible, I’d make the side tunable for left/right handed. Ideally for me (right handed) it would be the left edge of the phone.

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#31

To make things worse, the left/right circles overlap sometime with the content.
Visually I’d like them reduced to a thin line, like the pulley-presence, on the concerned side(s) - from the top down to the actual circle.

I’d also remove the button like behavior in favour of only swiping right /left.

#32

That would be bad for people who have yet understood the gesture based approach of SFOS. Also there are cases where you cant swipe because swiping interferes with what is happening in the app. But that i not a visual issue.

Another issue that i see is Fonts. Selection of font is not that much of an issue BUT the sizing seems to be all over the place. This is an area that needs a bit of thought.

#33

The main issue, though is how many pulley items there are. If it’s just one top and bottom, it’s easy. In an app like tidings, in the article view, there is only one bottom pulley item and flicking ‘next’ with it is easy. But I’m struggling with all my apps looking at ways to better use pulleys. There should never really be more than one per direction, except in configuration screens, or the like.

You mean on a page pushed to the stack? You CAN swipe back from those. That’s partly an application design issue.

#34

[quote=“ApB, post:32, topic:15641”]
That would be bad for people who have yet understood the gesture based approach of SFOS. [/quote]
Personally, I don’t find that clicking up there is a lot more intuitive, even for SFOS newcomers, besides being out of reach in ‘one hand’ handling (no Yety hands here)

Maybe reserving the bottom edge swiping for page switch? Anyway, I can live with what we have, I’d just find it nicer, closer to the ‘less is more’ philosophy.

#35

You mean the top menu? And only from inside an app presumably? (Because otherwise you can swipe anywhere). I still minimize apps to use to that menu, like it was in the old days.

@rtr2001 I don’t think most users can handle more, possibly conflicting, gestures. The current way of having to scroll up for pulley is the worst one, except for all the others. There was some thread about edge gestures… it went nowhere.

That’s just bad design though. By default the components don’t let you do that. While i agree the indicators could do with a change, they don’t necessarily need to be smaller.

Got any examples on hand? I have a feeling you are onto something, but can’t immediately find a problem.

It is hard to reach with thin-bezel phones, and swiping along it would be even worse.
I just don’t think two swipe-directions (i.e. inwards and along) per edge can work well. 2D surfaces with dual swipe directing are bad enough, “1D” will be even worse.

#36

In the notifications page for example -with no notifications- there are many different font sizes used and it kind of makes the whole thing feel a bit off. And there are other places in settings pages (not the main one) that too many font sizes (and colours) are used. Cant put my finger if it is the too many sizes or specific element sizes but something doesn’t feel right.

There are some other inconsistencies -like the carusell on top of the audio recording apps compared to the setting- but those are different.

#37

Very good point. With the extra large placeholder text i get an ugly linebreak. Should it match the title, that would be two improvements in one. Or at least it feels like it would be to my untrained eye.

#38

Just looking at the notifications screen, without notifications and its different font sizes…and i think it looks great, nothing to change there in my opinion.

Things i always change via patches are old buttons and remorse timers. Also the close icons when you select close all apps never looked great. Pulley menus should be accesible via up and down side swipe. I also would like more swype gestures instead of buttons.

#39

One thing that should get some graphical upgrade are the emojis. I’d be happy if they would be coloured all time (including on the keyboard).

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#40

I can think of a lot of things that could use a refresh: the browser, the camera API, the inability to use BT other than audio with Android support, an easy way to change the hostfile, echo cancellation, VoLTE for ported devices, …

In my eyes, the appearance is not one of the important construction sites. SFOS is beautiful and extremely good and easy to use! Like others here, I would even rather like a return to older designs (SFOS 1 for example).

What would definitely drive me away from SFOS would be things like even more buttons (see the stuff like Angelfish or similar, whose presence I appreciate but they are extremely poorly usable compared to native apps) or skeumorphism.

If I want a Linux that is visually close to Android, I could go with UT (admittedly without good access to the system) or the Librem 5 after all. Why should SFOS be made worse by becoming more similar? One argument for Linux is always: freedom of choice. But if all solutions converge to the same visual point, the freedom of choice is no longer given.

I understood that the question is not about turning away from gesture navigation, and I find that reassuring :smiley: But I think it’s not so easy to separate, as the discussion about pulley menus shows (which I don’t want to stifle by the way, it’s of course also legitimate).

4 Likes
#41

That’s exactly my situation, and i get your point, but the edge swipe fails about 50% of the times so that would be much quicker…

#42

From my point of view I would improve the contacts app and the phone app. Try to make a call with one hand an 2 active sim cards. It’s a mess at the moment.
In SFOS 2 it was much better than today it is.
This apps should have the buttons in the range of the right or left thumb or the pulleye menu should have a call entry.

Then it should be a must have for the usability rules for all apps.
For me it was a hard break as all the buttons came into the designs… I’m a big fan of pulleye menus really.

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#43

We 've tried to have some sort of discussion (and bug reports) about all the inconsistencies in SFOS but sadly it didn’t gain any traction with jolla.

Usability and inconsistencies are a different topic.

This is about visuals.

#44

For me design an usability comes together an should not be divided.

A good shape without good usability is useless and user frustration will be the result.

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#45

At least SailfishOS allow us to patch everything like we need/like it.

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#46

There should be not too much general(istic) rules for app developer. Different usecases require different approaches to provide best usability for the particular usecase.

Yes, I’m also a pulley fan, this looks ‘cool’ for me and is Sailfish typical and I like it. But if a pulley requires scrolling long text to upper end and leaving my current position before I can reach the pulley, then no thanks.

Given the looong banana phones, a few buttons on the bottom in portrait mode or on one side (please configurable, for left or right handed users!) in landscape mode, would also be OK for me, like in the mail app.