Suggestion: No lock screen needed when the phone is open [released]
asked 2014-01-11 00:59:08 +0300
Edit Sep 9 2015: This old question can be closed now, as the lock/home screen design changes thoroughly in Sailfish 2.0. What they did is quite close to what I suggested, though I wish they had kept the pulley menu accessible from home screen!
In short: I think the lock screen could be separated from the rest of the UI and made to be a separate "layer" you see only when you are waking up the phone. This would make the pulley menu more accessible. A wireframe image below illustrates this idea better than words.
When you're using the phone, the lock screen doesn’t have much function.
The lock screen only contains notification icons (that we also have in the events screen), the clock and some status icons (wifi, alarm etc). There’s nothing you can do with it except swipe away from it (to home screen, to pulley menu, to ambience switcher, to event screen). But you have to go past it if you want to access the pulley menu.
I think the clock and the status icons should be incorporated to either 1) the home screen or 2) the pulley menu (the date is already there). Also the stuff between the lock screen and the home screen (battery status and such) could be in the same place. (I think it makes more sense anyway to have the cellular reception icon in the same place as wifi/cellular data icons.)
This way the pulley menu could be right on top of the home screen and we would have one less gesture to access it. And the home screen would be the one central screen where everything (including the pulley menu) can be accessed from.
This suggestion is not completely thought over and there may be some problems I’m not seeing right now. But I’m sharing it anyway, because I find the current experience annoying.
(A sidethought: The only reason I go to the lock screen when using the phone is to use the silence/turn on sounds function in the pulley menu. I guess if there was some other convenient way to do that, I wouldn't be writing this :) But if the pulley menu was more accessible, I might use the other items there too.)
Edit/clarification: I don't mean the lock screen should be removed altogether. I mean that once you have woken up the phone, and you're using it, you don't need the lock screen anymore - until the phone is sleeping/locked again.
Edit Feb 10: This is how the home screen could look like with the clock and status icons included (as in the middle scheme in the wireframe above) and the pulley menu on top. A rough mockup. A bit crowded, I admit.
No, don't like the idea of moving info that should be seen immediately to a menu. Pulley menu should only be used to do something, and thus even the date should not be there but with the time in Lock screen.
foss4ever ( 2014-01-11 01:41:55 +0300 )editWell, you're not seeing it immediately now: you need to swipe to lock screen to see the time. Pulley menu wouldn't be any farther away.
To clarify: I'm talking about a situation when you're using the phone. Not when it's locked / sleeping - there must be a lock screen then, with time (and preferably, date).
ssahla ( 2014-01-11 01:50:15 +0300 )editWhen I doupke tap my phone to open it I'm immediately in Lock screen where in the bottom I currently see the time, Wifi connectivity and sound-profile. The date, battery status, BT-status , SIM-status which are now scatteted to.Pulley menu and the top of Home screen should be there too, at the bottom of Lock screen (definately not in any menu).
foss4ever ( 2014-01-11 01:56:37 +0300 )editYes, you are correct. But you are not understanding my suggestion. Read it through.
ssahla ( 2014-01-11 02:03:30 +0300 )editKind of hard to explain this. But I don't mean the lock screen should be removed altogether. I mean that once you have woken up the phone, and you're using it, you don't need the lock screen anymore - until the phone is sleeping/locked again. The info on the lock screen can be incorporated to the home screen or the pulley menu.
ssahla ( 2014-01-11 02:06:40 +0300 )edit