View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0009234 | MMA | Navigation | public | 2012-03-23 14:59 | 2012-10-07 05:26 |
| Reporter | rusty | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | immediate | Severity | major | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | closed | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Fixed in Version | 1.0.1 | ||||
| Summary | 0009234: Breadcrumbs functionality isn't intuitive | ||||
| Description | 1) Currently, the breadcrumbs functionality implemented within the action bar doesn't contain any visual cues that it is displaying a hierarchy. e.g. i) If user selects Tracks ---> It shows: [icon] Tracks, but -There is no visual connection between [icon] and Tracks. i.e. it would be preferable to show [icon] > [Tracks icon] 'Tracks' ii) If the user selects Artist > U2 > Running to Stand Still --> it shows [icon] Albums , but -There's no visual connection between [Icon] and Album -It should show [Home icon] > [Artist Icon] > U2 i.e. Text should only appear for the final entry in a breadcrumb (for space reasons) 2) Clicking sections of the breadcrumbs doesn't work as expected: a) Clicking [home icon] doesn't bring the user to the home screen b) Clicking the second entry tracks pops up a dropdown selector. Normally, the final entry in a breadcrumb doesn't link to anything. Moreover the manner in which it's implemented is confusing: i) there's no visual feedback that an entry is linkable ii) it simply duplicates the functionality of clicking the 'home' icon. Breadcrumbs are normally so that all but the final breadcrumb are linkable. e.g. for [Home icon] > [Artist Icon] > U2 , [Home icon] should link to the home screen, [Artist Icon] should link to the Artists view, and U2 shouldn't link to anything. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Fixed in build | |||||
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Discussed with Marek over IM, with the following results: Just to summarize the looks of Rusty's proposal in a more complex situation, when we implement Genres support, the action bar could look like: [Home] > [Genre] > [Artist] > [Album] > {Album title} Generally speaking this might be a good way of navigation for tablets, but there are some problems. Particularly this design definitely can't be used on phones, where the horizontal space is very limited. Then also, returning 'Up' (not the same as 'Back') wouldn't be as intuitive/easy as possible. So, in agreement with http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html , it seems that the best solution for v1.0 will be to always show only one icon for the previous level, e.g.: < [Home icon] Albums {for Albums view} < [Album icon] Album title { for Album view} etc. The only remaining question is a usage of spinners (see http://developer.android.com/design/building-blocks/spinners.html). Their usage could simplify navigation (as it does in many standard applications in Android 4.0). We have several options: 1. Don't use them at all - this would mean that user would always have to return to the home screen for changing the view. 2. Always use them - this would simplify navigation, probably the only drawback is that they might look a little weird when shown e.g. on Album view, like: < [Album icon] Album title {spinner} 3. Show them for top level activities only - i.e. only for Albums, Artists, Genres, ... activities, not for sub-activities. I think that I would prefer 2. in order to make navigation as easy as possible. 2. |
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Following further discussion, it was agreed that: - Only one level of hierarchy is displayed: an '<' following by an Attribute icon, followedy by the attribute value. - The first level is an icon that represents a category and links one level up the hierarchy - Optional: long press on the Attribute icon --> spinner of items in the Top Level Hierarchy - The proposal that clicking the Attribute value would yield a spinner was rejected because the spinner would contain too many values This would yield the following: - User Clicks 'Genres' --> [< Home icon] [Genres] ---------------------- Accapella ... Rock ... - clicking [< Home icon] --> Up to the Home screen - Optional--click and hold [< Home icon] --> show spinner of choices available via the home screen (e.g. Artist, Albums, Genres, etc...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -User clicks 'Rock' --> [< Genre icon] [Rock] ---------------------- Shuffle all Rock Adam Ant Beatles Death Cab for Cutie .... - user clicks [< Genres icon] ---> Up to the [Genres] screen - Optional--user clicks and holds [< Genres icon]---> show spinner of choices available via the home screen (e.g. Artist, Albums, Genres, etc...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -User clicks [Beatles] --> [< Artist icon] [Beatles] ------------------------- Shuffle All Rock;Beatles <A Hard Day's Night> <Album 2> .... - user clicks [< Artist icon] ---> Up to the Genre=Rock screen - Optional-user clicks and holds [< Artist icon] --> show spinner of choices available via the home screen (e.g. Artist, Albums, Genres, etc...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -User clicks A Hard Day's Night --> [< Album icon] [A Hard Day's Night] ------------------------- <Track 1> <Track 2> .... - user clicks [< Album icon] ---> Up to the Genre=Rock>Artist=Beatles screen - Optional-user clicks and holds [< Album icon] --> show spinner of choices available via the home screen (e.g. Artist, Albums, Genres, etc...) The only possible issue with the above is that multi-level hierarchies are supported but not displayed in the UI. e.g. for Home > Genre > Rock > Artist > Beatles, it may be confusing to show [< Artist icon] [Beatles], and then when the user examines the spinner (e.g. a day later, having forgotten the location in the hierachy), only finds 2 other artists listed. There are a couple of possible approaches to dealing with this, but for the moment, all have been rejected as the UI may be fine as proposed. These options might be considered in the future: a) implement hierachical navigation, but display the hierarchy. e.g.: - In the action bar, show [< Genre icon][<Artist icon][Beatles]. That way the user understands that 2 filters are active, by using icons it takes up barely any space. - OR somehow display all of the additive filters being set (e.g. a row in which each filter is shown like a tag that the user can cross out. b) don't implement hierarchical filtering and Limit filters to a single level. e.g. only show Tracks (rather than Artists) within Genre=Rock. c) don't implement hierarchical filtering and instead implement additive filtering UI. e.g.: -Row of clickable icons in the action bar, representing: Genre, Artist, Rating, etc.. Clicking each would show a spinner allowing the user to select a filter on that attribute (just like miller columns) -Row representing the active filter: e.g. Genre icon: Rock [x], Artist icon: U2[x], Jack White[x] An example of this is at http://www.edmunds.com/finder/car-finder-results.html -- the only difference is that in MM we'd use spinners instead of miller columns. In the future, we might also improve this further by taking the approach suggested by Jiri of Navigating Top level items as suggested at http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/app-structure.html , which would give us a much more content-centric UI. |
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I added a new icon with 'up' sign, but the mm icon is now too small. Will be replaced by new one made by Matej. |
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Resolved by implementing Android ICS UP action to activities and library fragments. |
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Verified. |
