User Interface Feedback Thread

[ausgang]

Hi Mike,

I currently have the Samsung Galaxy 1 and the iPhone4 for comparism in front of me.
After adjusting the settings to the same fontsize and layout I took a look at the entry 散 on both devices.

Although the screen of the Samsung (4") is moderatly larger than that of the iPhone (3,5")
the displayed information is the same. The buttons of the android version are far too big, I also think
that the top-buttons (switch between Def, Info, Stroke, Words) are not necessary in the Dict-Entry screen.
Why not do it the same way as on the iPhone version: tap on the chinese character to go into Info, Words, etc?

Another question: Is it somehow possible to zoom into a full-screen display (hiding android status-icons)?

For me one of the most important things (of course after functionality) is the amount of information that
can be displayed without scrolling. Maybe this has some room for upgrading in the final version.

Anyway I have to thank you very much for doing the android-version of your fine product!

Greetings,
Juergen

 

[mikelove]

I currently have the Samsung Galaxy 1 and the iPhone4 for comparism in front of me.
After adjusting the settings to the same fontsize and layout I took a look at the entry 散 on both devices.

Although the screen of the Samsung (4") is moderatly larger than that of the iPhone (3,5")
the displayed information is the same. The buttons of the android version are far too big

That's basically an issue relating to Android's system for identifying display sizes; they leave a lot of it to manufacturers, and they don't really provide any reliable way to distinguish a device like the Nexus One (3.7 inch screen, so about the same width as an iPhone) from a Galaxy S2 (4.3 inch screen); they're both "normal-hdpi" screens. And since having buttons be too small is a more significant usability problem than having them be too big, we size them appropriately for those 3.7 inch devices. Likewise with fonts - the reason that you're seeing the same number of characters per line as on an iPhone is because our target phone has the same screen width.

I also think that the top-buttons (switch between Def, Info, Stroke, Words) are not necessary in the Dict-Entry screen.
Why not do it the same way as on the iPhone version: tap on the chinese character to go into Info, Words, etc?

Discoverability, mainly - people can't find that button on iPhone, one of our most common tech support complaints is that someone has just bought the stroke order add-on and can't figure out how to access it. We're actually moving to that interface on iPhone too. Also, each of those tabs has a significant number of people making very heavy use of it - Info for people interested in alternate pronunciations (Hangul, Cantonese, Japanese, etc), Stroke for people learning stroke order, Chars for people using mnemonic / component-based character learning methods, and Words for people who like to learn a character by the words it contains.

We could consider only displaying those tabs in single-character entries, but it's a pretty nice time-saver to be able to drill into a particular character without leaving the entry you were already on, in fact we're thinking about letting you display other definitions besides Unihan's in the "Info" tab to help with that.

Another question: Is it somehow possible to zoom into a full-screen display (hiding android status-icons)?

For me one of the most important things (of course after functionality) is the amount of information that
can be displayed without scrolling. Maybe this has some room for upgrading in the final version.

We could certainly consider adding an option for that - we have one on iOS.

Anyway I have to thank you very much for doing the android-version of your fine product!

And thank you for the feedback.

 

[ausgang]

That's basically an issue relating to Android's system for identifying display sizes; they leave a lot of it to manufacturers, and they don't really provide any reliable way to distinguish a device like the Nexus One (3.7 inch screen, so about the same width as an iPhone) from a Galaxy S2 (4.3 inch screen); they're both "normal-hdpi" screens. And since having buttons be too small is a more significant usability problem than having them be too big, we size them appropriately for those 3.7 inch devices. Likewise with fonts - the reason that you're seeing the same number of characters per line as on an iPhone is because our target phone has the same screen width.

I guess that's the downside of an open system like android, but it's understandable that you have to keep an eye on the users with smaller devices.

Another question (probalby not the right place ...): Would it be possible to sort the "words"-tab by "most common words first" like it is in Wenlin. That would help a lot to distinguish between important and "exotic" words.

 

[mikelove]

Another question (probalby not the right place ...): Would it be possible to sort the "words"-tab by "most common words first" like it is in Wenlin. That would help a lot to distinguish between important and "exotic" words.

Yes, that one's actually in the works - main problem has been coming up with a decent word frequency list.

 

[Supaiku]

Combined definition / character info screen - good idea as an option - on a tablet, the definitions are sometimes very short.

A flashcard widget would be great. (Hanping has one that seems limited to starred words.)

 

[Supaiku]

OCR App UI

In the OCR App the pause button inconveniently place when using a tablet (10in Toshiba Thrive). It's hard to press the button and hold it still because you must re-position your hand.

If you could offer a portrait tablet button configuration which placed the pause button approximately center left or right, this would be great. If not center, then at least swap the less important span lines button and the pause so it can be reached easily from the side of the tablet.

 

[mikelove]

Combined definition / character info screen - good idea as an option - on a tablet, the definitions are sometimes very short.

Definitely under consideration for the future; at the moment we don't even do this on iPad yet, and there are way more of those in circulation than Android tablets (unlike with phones), so we'll probably experiment with it first on there and bring it to Android once we've got it fully fleshed-out.

A flashcard widget would be great.

This has always felt a little gimmicky to me... we've had some requests for a "word of the day" feature on iOS that I've similarly dismissed. It's actually kind of a hassle to code (witness the bugs / feature compromises other apps have had to deal with for it) and I don't really see a big learning benefit.

A better flashcard "home screen" in general is something we are looking at, though - something that'll give you ready access to progress statistics / lists of words recently reviewed / etc.

In the OCR App the pause button inconveniently place when using a tablet (10in Toshiba Thrive). It's hard to press the button and hold it still because you must re-position your hand.

You're using live OCR on a 10" tablet? That's not really something we were expecting a lot of people to do, though maybe that's only because the iPad's camera is so crappy and hardly anybody does it on iOS... we haven't done any tablet-specific UI coding in live OCR, in fact we've barely even done any testing with it. Don't you find it a little heavy to hold up and point at a piece of text?

Anyway, I'm not sure if we'll get live OCR tablet-optimized for the first official release, but have you tried turning on Settings / OCR / Live Video OCR Settings / Tap video to pause? That would let you tap anywhere in the video feed, including on the side of the screen.

 

[Supaiku]

It's all I've got :/ (I guess it's a bit heavy - the Thrive is particularly so - but no biggie.) I got to admit, I did just about buy a new android phone, just because of how great this OCR　ｆｅａｔｕｒｅ is - alas, the tablet works just fine, and I don't have the money to do so responsibly ATM.
Anyhow, I didn't know about the tap anywhere feature. That will probably do the trick! Seems like a problem solved!

Otherwise, I do hope the UI could be spiffed up a bit eventually. I like Hanping's multi-colored characters. It's somehow helpful in a very subtle way.


As for the flashcard stuff - the widget could be gimmicky. Honestly, I'm not a big memorize, so I probably wouldn't have even bought the flashcard app if it wasn't for the Bundle being the cheapest way to go for what I wanted. Still, I might wind up using it - and it would be nice to have something that sits on the desktop as I probably won't want to open an app to get to it (seeing as I'm not much of a flashcarder...) Whatevs

 

[Giraffe]

I tried exporting from my Palm using the PlecoMover utility but the file that was created (PlecoFlash.pqb.backup) would not import into my Android.

Database backups have to be handled differently from import / export files. To get that file into your copy of Pleco on Android, rename it to "PlecoFlash.pqb", then put it in the /Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/databases folder on your SD card, making sure to delete the flashcard database file that's already in there.

I didn't have a "... com.pleco... anything" structure in the Android/data/folder on the SD card. I did try to create that path and put the renamed file there but it still wouldn't import.

 

[mikelove]

It's all I've got :/ (I guess it's a bit heavy - the Thrive is particularly so - but no biggie.) I got to admit, I did just about buy a new android phone, just because of how great this OCR　ｆｅａｔｕｒｅ is - alas, the tablet works just fine, and I don't have the money to do so responsibly ATM.
Anyhow, I didn't know about the tap anywhere feature. That will probably do the trick! Seems like a problem solved!

Otherwise, I do hope the UI could be spiffed up a bit eventually. I like Hanping's multi-colored characters. It's somehow helpful in a very subtle way.

Our characters are multi-colored too - are they rendering as black-and-white only for you? If you don't like the color scheme you can easily change it via Settings / General. We don't render characters as multi-colored in OCR because we find it hurts contrast and readability to see them that way in definitions, but in the main dictionary they should certainly be colored. (in fact I believe we were the first dictionary app to offer this feature, several months before the book that popularized the concept came out)

As for the flashcard stuff - the widget could be gimmicky. Honestly, I'm not a big memorize, so I probably wouldn't have even bought the flashcard app if it wasn't for the Bundle being the cheapest way to go for what I wanted. Still, I might wind up using it - and it would be nice to have something that sits on the desktop as I probably won't want to open an app to get to it (seeing as I'm not much of a flashcarder...) Whatevs

Well we're definitely not targeting the casual flashcard-er market here... if someone's motivated enough to wade through a dozen or so configuration screens and figure out what the heck a "scorefile" is to get things configured properly, they're probably motivated enough to open our app

I didn't have a "... com.pleco... anything" structure in the Android/data/folder on the SD card. I did try to create that path and put the renamed file there but it still wouldn't import.

Well that's odd... are you sure you're looking on your actual SD card and not internal memory? The SD card might be in an "external_sd" directory within the "sdcard" one (confusingly enough).

 

[Giraffe]

I tried exporting from my Palm using the PlecoMover utility but the file that was created (PlecoFlash.pqb.backup) would not import into my Android.

Database backups have to be handled differently from import / export files. To get that file into your copy of Pleco on Android, rename it to "PlecoFlash.pqb", then put it in the /Android/data/com.pleco.chinesesystem/files/databases folder on your SD card, making sure to delete the flashcard database file that's already in there.

I didn't have a "... com.pleco... anything" structure in the Android/data/folder on the SD card. I did try to create that path and put the renamed file there but it still wouldn't import.

Never mind, it started working. I think it was probably that the program had to restart completely before it recognized the file (it's not obvious in Android whether the app is still running).

 

[Supaiku]

Our characters are multi-colored too - are they rendering as black-and-white only for you? If you don't like the color scheme you can easily change it via Settings / General. We don't render characters as multi-colored in OCR because we find it hurts contrast and readability to see them that way in definitions, but in the main dictionary they should certainly be colored. (in fact I believe we were the first dictionary app to offer this feature, several months before the book that popularized the concept came out)

Indeed, they are colored - I guess i wasn't paying attention! Or I was just grasping at what I thought was making a difference in a program I felt more comfortable looking at (though Pleco's features are unmatched).

I just compared the UI to Hanpings, and I think the difference is a smaller font (or rather, selectable font - given I have a tablet, this one is quite large... Hanping uses the system font for definitions, which winds up being pretty small). I double checked to make sure I wasn't just not paying attention this time and it was only half the case - I found settings for the Definition Screen Interface, but not for the main screen - which is actually where I need it most, (in the hopes of fitting more of the possible matches on the screen). It would be nice to have the same head character/definition text font size selection capability as in the definition screen with the main look-up screen (left pane/main).

OH! and I found a bug: in the single pane dictionary version the look-up method bar (right of the search bar) does not show text, though it works.

 

[mikelove]

Indeed, they are colored - I guess i wasn't paying attention! Or I was just grasping at what I thought was making a difference in a program I felt more comfortable looking at (though Pleco's features are unmatched).

You find Pleco's UI comparatively uncomfortable? Why? We've got about the same number of buttons on the main screen, and about the same amount of information in the dictionary entry list - is there something about the design itself that bothers you (colors or icons, say)? We're trying to make our app as unintimidating as we can - we want to appeal to people looking for a simple dictionary as well as a more sophisticated one (we'd rather they use our free app than somebody else's paid one) - so if there's something that's problematic for that we'd really like to try to address it.

I just compared the UI to Hanpings, and I think the difference is a smaller font (or rather, selectable font - given I have a tablet, this one is quite large... Hanping uses the system font for definitions, which winds up being pretty small). I double checked to make sure I wasn't just not paying attention this time and it was only half the case - I found settings for the Definition Screen Interface, but not for the main screen - which is actually where I need it most, (in the hopes of fitting more of the possible matches on the screen). It would be nice to have the same head character/definition text font size selection capability as in the definition screen with the main look-up screen (left pane/main).

It is, but it's under "Chinese-English" under "Entry List" on "Main screen interface" - we should probably reorganize that section of preferences a bit. That screen lets you separately configure the layout and font sizes of the entry list in portrait and landscape orientation and with the keyboard open and closed. (lots of options, but given how much the interface can potentially change between modes we actually think it's important to offer that many)

OH! and I found a bug: in the single pane dictionary version the look-up method bar (right of the search bar) does not show text, though it works.

You mean that the text on the HWR/Rad/Key buttons isn't showing? Thanks, we're on top of that - they've already been replaced by icons in our development builds.

 

[Supaiku]

I see - separate settings for portrait and landscape English and Chinese!
Found them

The smaller font helps. I like it this way - with this font selectability it's great. Hanping is just simpler, (but contains less information)

I'm liking it
However, I do wish that I could select the ratio of the Main vs Definition halves, or hide the definition from the main screen. I like having the definition tab open, but considering the size of my screen, being so large is a bit unnecessary. if it were easily minimizable, or somehow resizeable, this would allow still more space for the Main screen's definitions which are sometimes more quickly accessible,
To compare with hanping, it ONLY has the mainscreen, which makes it appear very simple, however, I don't like always having to open a whole new screen with their app, I prefer the definition windown in yours, except i would like if it either opened when I clicked a definition on the main window, or was resizeable/smaller.

 

[mikelove]

However, I do wish that I could select the ratio of the Main vs Definition halves, or hide the definition from the main screen. I like having the definition tab open, but considering the size of my screen, being so large is a bit unnecessary. if it were easily minimizable, or somehow resizeable, this would allow still more space for the Main screen's definitions which are sometimes more quickly accessible,

There's the option to hide the definition permanently in Settings / Dictionary / Main Screen Interface / Two-panel in (portrait / landscape); a temporary one that shows / hides when tapped is something we've had a few requests for, though. How would you want it to hide and show; show when you tap on a dictionary entry in the result list and hide when you tap that entry again or enter another search, maybe? Or would there need to be a dedicated toggle button?

If we only added an option to adjust the size ratio, what ratio would you consider ideal? 50:50 or even more list-slanted than that?

 

[Supaiku]

I see the permanent option, but indeed temporary would be ideal.

Show on definition click, hide on search input would be great - perhaps also hide when you "unselect" the same definition entry would be handy (so you can continue full screen browsing the previous search after checking on the details of one definition). Manual hide would be a fine option as well (a bar between the winows with a + that you click to slide open and closed). Perhaps a choice?

As for the ratio - something like 25/75 or 33/66 in each direction an 50/50 might be good(I'd probably have to see it to say, but then again, what it is now in both directions should be about right). In-app drag and re-size, or a resize arrow/box/button on the bar would be nice - or even a manual hide/re-open (rather than auto hiding as discussed above).

 

[mikelove]

Show on definition click, hide on search input would be great - perhaps also hide when you "unselect" the same definition entry would be handy (so you can continue full screen browsing the previous search after checking on the details of one definition). Manual hide would be a fine option as well (a bar between the winows with a + that you click to slide open and closed). Perhaps a choice?

What do you mean by "unselect"? Generally there's no way to deselect a list item on Android, at least not in touch mode. A resizable bar would be nice but in order to detect touches accurately we'd have to capture them from the area around it too, which would pose a problem both for list selection and word lookups.

As for the ratio - something like 25/75 or 33/66 in each direction an 50/50 might be good(I'd probably have to see it to say, but then again, what it is now in both directions should be about right). In-app drag and re-size, or a resize arrow/box/button on the bar would be nice - or even a manual hide/re-open (rather than auto hiding as discussed above).

There's probably only room for a toolbar button on tablets, but then again they're the main users for this feature anyway.

 

[sthubbar]

Mike,

Is it possible to automatically clear the search box upon language change?

I seem to remember that was a Palm feature.

Thanks.

 

[Supaiku]

What do you mean by "unselect"? Generally there's no way to deselect a list item on Android, at least not in touch mode. A resizable bar would be nice but in order to detect touches accurately we'd have to capture them from the area around it too, which would pose a problem both for list selection and word lookups.

I mean the second time you select it - so the first time it expands, the second time it retracts.

There's probably only room for a toolbar button on tablets, but then again they're the main users for this feature anyway.

It could be as small as just double lines you can drag.

 

[mikelove]

Is it possible to automatically clear the search box upon language change?

We don't support it on iOS either at the moment, and to be honest I'm hesitant to do so since the whole "language button" concept is due to change a bit in 2012 (assuming we finally get a Cantonese dictionary licensed) - I wouldn't want to add that feature and then have to quickly turn around and take it away again. But we can consider it if it doesn't interfere with the new language button design.

I mean the second time you select it - so the first time it expands, the second time it retracts.

Ah, that's what I was thinking too.

It could be as small as just double lines you can drag.

As I said, that's problematic on any capacitive-touchscreen device because the tapping area needs to be so big that it interferes with list selection and character selection - a toolbar button actually has much less of an impact than that would.