Make Sailfish UI consistent and easy again. Please!
With Sailfish 1, the UI was really consistent, beautiful and easy. I especially loved the fact that almost everything could be done by dragging/swiping. No need to hit small buttons.
Version 2 already changed for the worse. The quick actions on the app covers were no longer a swipe action, but required me to tap on the tiniest icons. This was, as far as I remember, a consequence of the introduction of a mysterious "partner space" that, as it turned out, nobody was interested in ever since.
During the end of 2.x, an even worse change was introduced: The new image viewer: Everywhere else in Sailfish, you drag from left to right in order to leave a view and return to the previous; the navigation path is indicated by a glowing circle on the upper left. Now there's one single view that you close by swiping from top to bottom - without any visiual indication at all that this is possible. To add to the chaos, there's an additional Windows 3.11 style [x] for closing on the top right. The easily accessible menu items (remember? just drag down...) have been replaced, yet again, by tiny symbols.
Now with 3, the situation became even worse. To save one single swipe, the status menu was made accessible from everywhere. (Before it was a swipe from left to right to reach the events screen, then you could swipe down. Now you can swipe down without the one swipe to the right before.) Because this conflicts with the well-known gesture for closing an app, the upper edge of the screen has been divided into 3 (!) parts... and if you're lucky, you hit the right one. Within the status menu, the various status indicators no longer follow the Sailfish style language.
What used to be a pretty and consistent UI when it started is now a wild mixture of SFOS remains, Android and things that were probably just thrown in because nobody had the time to finish them.
It seems to me there's nobody responsible @Jolla for UI and visual design at the moment. I don't feel the visions of a master mind behind all this.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to advocate one certain style (although I really loved 2014/2015). Jolla could copy iOS 1:1 if they had the lawyers to do so, they could go down the Android route, could invent something new yet again... That's not all that important to me. What is important, though, is that the UI should be consistent and easy. And yes, it doesn't hurt if it looks good.
Please. Maybe for SF4...
I agree with everything you say about SfOS1 vs SfOS2 all the way through last update. But I actually like the new three part top swipe to access the status menu. Even though I prefer the SfOS1 with events from the bottom and status above I think the global status menu is better (even if it copies IOS/Android).
Mohjive ( 2018-11-03 18:25:45 +0200 )editI love the top menu and had this kind of top menu enabled in SFOS2 with the help of a patch. What I don't like about the new one is the design of the icons. Those are so Androidish. Before in SFOS2 we had the small glooming dots. However those require more space. About the three areas for swiping: I'd preferred distinguishing the actions by the distance swiped. E.g. 20% Swipe just locks screen, 40% Swipe closes app and 60% swipe keeps the menu open.
naytsyrhc ( 2018-11-03 18:59:57 +0200 )editThere is nothing wrong about copying good ideas.
pisarz1958 ( 2018-11-03 20:16:00 +0200 )editThere is nothing right about copying bad ideas.
vattuvarg ( 2018-11-03 22:37:56 +0200 )editCopying can be good or bad, that's true. In this particular case I think copying the top pull gesture from IOS/Android is better than keeping the SfOS2 way. BUT(!) I still stand by the opinion that SfOS1 was better than both IOS and Android and that Jolla got lost trying to do something like everybody else. For me SfOS1 was as ground breaking as IOS was, compared to the existing UX then, when it was first released.
Mohjive ( 2018-11-03 23:15:16 +0200 )editThe status menu being accessible from everywhere was already a standard feature on the N9, and in fact it worked the same way but from the opposite edge of the screen on Sailfish 1.0. I agree that dividing the top edge in three is a bad idea, especially if your screen is only a couple of cm wide, causing you to close applications when you wanted to open the menu, and opening the menu when you wanted to close the application. Then again, being forced to choose between having either the top menu or swipe-to-close (or swipe-to-lock) available at all times was always one of the weak spots of previous Sailfish versions.
nthn ( 2018-11-04 00:16:49 +0200 )editIn my opinion the SFOS 3 UI is the best compromise of the most used features. 2.x top menu was overly complicated to navigate into, and I prefer the current top swipe everywhere solution. There could be an option to disable swipe down to close completely, but I already got used to swipe down from the edge too.
Manatus ( 2018-11-04 00:59:47 +0200 )edit@nthn: previous Sailfish version (notice the missing 's'). SfOS 1 had top menu above events view, which in turn was reached from bottom swipe. So to access the top menu you did a bottom swipe followed by a pull down. Easy and quick (even if the top menu had less to offer back then).
Mohjive ( 2018-11-04 03:13:09 +0200 )editSFOS 1 was surely unique in how it utilized the gestures for navigation. In some places, gestures were just slapped where things could be done more simply and intuitively. I think cover actions was one of those things that didn't really make sense with gestures. While I agree that they were easy to trigger, the icons essentially looked like buttons thus making it unintuitive. Also SFOS1 took gestures to the extreme by making it difficult for a new user to understand. In home view, pulling up from center would open up app grid and an edge swipe would bring events view.
What 2.0 brought was a more intuitive and easier to learn solution since in home screen regular swipes were the same as edge swipes in home view. This actually made it more consistent and easier to discover for new users and I believe this improvement was in my opinion the key element that earned Jolla the prize in the MWC at the time. Some of these solutions of course came with the cost of breaking down the structure of the old interface but it also further entrenched some of the main selling points such as multitasking with a globally accessible app launcher.
With Sailfish 3, further improvements for usability have been introduced with globally accessible quick controls which has been probably one of the most used patches since SFOS1 and long overdue. What 2.0 did with the events view quick controls was simply not what the majority of the users wanted as it is way too clunky for a feature used so often. Ambiances have had their prominence reduced but honestly, they've been a bit too prominent considering how often they're used. I bet most people toggle wifi or bluetooth more often than change ambiances.
Toxip ( 2018-11-04 04:07:05 +0200 )edit