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0 pointsaequitas7y ago0 comments

> All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at

Instead of zooming pinching try to click the street to drop a pin and you got the street name.

Old abstractions (maps) on newer media (phones, desktops) offer a UX that cartmakers in the past could only dream off. It is up to us to break our old habits and discover and use this new UX.

For example. When the iPhone first came people complained about the lack of copy and paste. But most of the time people don't _need_ to copy and paste text, eg they _want_ to dial the phone number they see on a webpage. Therefore they _need_ to have the phone number in their phone app. A problem which can be solved many ways (eg: recognise numbers on a page and make them clickable links directly to phone app) of which copy and paste, though the most familiar, is really one of the worst in UX.

This is the difference between what people (think they) want and what they actually need.

Back to maps. People don't want to read street names, they want the nearest address to a certain s point. Of which zooming and pinching or a cluttered screen full of text are by far the most inferior ways to use of the technology available today.

0 comments

viraptor7y ago

> of which copy and paste, though the most familiar, is really one of the worst in UX.

I call bullshit on this. I'm using copy/paste on the phone all the time. In using it between many different applications. The way you described it the operation would have to be implemented separately for everything. Text field to phone, text to phone with editing it, phone app (incoming number) to every-single-app-taking-text, etc. I even used copy/paste to write this message.

This functionality is so general we need a solution which works everywhere. This doesn't stop extra functionality that makes some common flows easier (number on the website to phone for example).

The same applies to the street names example. You can add location features without leaving the view with missing names where there's space available.

aequitasOP7y ago

Your right on that. I'm not trying to say copy paste doesn't have any uses. But a lot of people flock to copy paste as the first (and only) solution to every problem when more UX friendly and effective methods exist.

But personally I cringe every time I have to copy and paste a address on my phone into map or the address book. The software can know its and address, phone number or any other object and provide context specific solutions for it.

amonavis7y ago

I'm afraid you're looking at it purely from a citizen/resident of a developed country. Where I'm originally from, addresses are all mostly a description of how to reach a certain location given the surrounding landmarks.

A close to reality (just changed the exact names) example is:

Firstname Lastname Second floor North John Hancock's building behind the Saint Joseph school (Church side) Neighborhood of the Priars City Country

Of course in native language it's more fluid but you get the idea.

not_kurt_godel7y ago

> Instead of zooming pinching try to click the street to drop a pin and you got the street name.

Dude, are you serious?? There is literally no excuse not to just show the damn street label. Stop blaming users for bad UX.

kryptiskt7y ago

> (eg: recognise numbers on a page and make them clickable links directly to phone app)

I hate that! That makes it unnecessarily hard to copy order numbers and the like on my iPhone.

Phoning is legacy functionality, I almost never want to use a number as a phone number.

Copy/Paste on the other hand, that's very useful. I can copy the bits I want, anywhere I want, without dumb as hell software trying to guess what I actually want to do.

aequitasOP7y ago

Of course it should not hinder the UX of copy pasting in the process. I probably hate that just as much as you.

> I almost never want to use a number as a phone number.

This is the 'what you want and what you need'. You don't want to copy and paste a number into a phone to dial them. You need to have a voice call with the person/company who's page you are visiting or email you are reading.

Google search solves this nicely in their mobile search. They don't show phone numbers or addresses primarely, but buttons to like Call, Navigate, Share and Website. That is what I need when I search a company on Google and essentially what I want.

onemoresoop7y ago

How about if you could change the context menu in the settings. If you want dial, check that you want dial in the settings, if never use dial, check off in settings.

bfred_it7y ago

That's a good way to see it, but the copy-paste comparison is bad. Copy-paste is so low-level that I can do everything with it, without the iOS having to wait years to get the functionality (if ever)

e.g. I want to translate a message. Either I wait for every messenger/OS to get a decent in-app translator, or I use copy-paste into Google Translate — very clunky, but better than not being able to.

aequitasOP7y ago

The copy paste is bad indeed. But for me it was the first time I saw the difference between what I want and what I need in software. Apple was definitely to late with adding it to their iOS and has not been active enough in providing proper alternatives to copy and pasting like I mention above. Although I'm somewhat of an Apple fanboy (no iphone btw), they really disappointed me with this.

But with most things people hate change and will often not adopt to new things. The famous non Henry Ford quote comes to mind: If you asked people what they want they would wanted a faster horse (and not a car).

I think I'm just sour Apple didn't seize their opportunity to provide the proper alternate solutions for copy paste (before/alongside with it) when they had the chance.

I don't know what the current state on iOS is, but on android you often have context buttons (dial, navigate) next to copy/paste buttons when you select a address or phone number.

crazygringo7y ago

> try to click the street to drop a pin and you got the street name.

But then I'd lose my actual destination which is already pinned! And I don't want to lose that pin because I'm going to need to refer back to it. I'm trying to understand the area around it.

> People don't want to read street names, they want the nearest address to a certain s point.

This is exactly the kind of attitude that winds up sounding to my ears as extremely tone-deaf. No, I don't want the address, I already have the address, I want to see the name of the cross street before the address so I know when to slow down on my bike and start looking at the (much harder to read) building numbers.

This has nothing to do with letting go of old abstractions. And considering the #1 complaint I hear about Maps is always "I can't find the street names", this suggests that the "new UX" you're referring to is just bad UX. Just because there's an old way doesn't mean it's bad.

trmsw7y ago

If only some people (like me) want to see street names, maybe it could be an optional layer. You enable the layer it adds a pointer and a label above the map showing the name of whatever's under the pointer. To get the name of something you could either move the map in the normal way or move the pointer.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

viraptor7y ago

> of which copy and paste, though the most familiar, is really one of the worst in UX.

This functionality is so general we need a solution which works everywhere. This doesn't stop extra functionality that makes some common flows easier (number on the website to phone for example).

The same applies to the street names example. You can add location features without leaving the view with missing names where there's space available.

aequitasOP7y ago

amonavis7y ago

A close to reality (just changed the exact names) example is:

Firstname Lastname Second floor North John Hancock's building behind the Saint Joseph school (Church side) Neighborhood of the Priars City Country

Of course in native language it's more fluid but you get the idea.

not_kurt_godel7y ago

> Instead of zooming pinching try to click the street to drop a pin and you got the street name.

Dude, are you serious?? There is literally no excuse not to just show the damn street label. Stop blaming users for bad UX.

kryptiskt7y ago

> (eg: recognise numbers on a page and make them clickable links directly to phone app)

I hate that! That makes it unnecessarily hard to copy order numbers and the like on my iPhone.

Phoning is legacy functionality, I almost never want to use a number as a phone number.

Copy/Paste on the other hand, that's very useful. I can copy the bits I want, anywhere I want, without dumb as hell software trying to guess what I actually want to do.

aequitasOP7y ago

Of course it should not hinder the UX of copy pasting in the process. I probably hate that just as much as you.

> I almost never want to use a number as a phone number.

onemoresoop7y ago

How about if you could change the context menu in the settings. If you want dial, check that you want dial in the settings, if never use dial, check off in settings.

bfred_it7y ago

That's a good way to see it, but the copy-paste comparison is bad. Copy-paste is so low-level that I can do everything with it, without the iOS having to wait years to get the functionality (if ever)

aequitasOP7y ago

I think I'm just sour Apple didn't seize their opportunity to provide the proper alternate solutions for copy paste (before/alongside with it) when they had the chance.

I don't know what the current state on iOS is, but on android you often have context buttons (dial, navigate) next to copy/paste buttons when you select a address or phone number.

crazygringo7y ago

> try to click the street to drop a pin and you got the street name.

But then I'd lose my actual destination which is already pinned! And I don't want to lose that pin because I'm going to need to refer back to it. I'm trying to understand the area around it.

> People don't want to read street names, they want the nearest address to a certain s point.

trmsw7y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse