

Archiving in the trash: The Instapaper UI - jharrier
http://www.virtualpants.com/post/31802630265/archiving-in-the-trash-the-instapaper-ui

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tptacek
_Imagine if Android’s Gmail app made you click the trash to save something. We
would certainly see complaining blog posts and snarky tweets all over the
place. So why does Instapaper get a free pass?_

As we can all plainly see, it doesn't.

~~~
jasomill
Imagine if you could "safely remove" a disk from Apple's own file management
app by dragging it to the trash.

Instapaper's UI is discoverable and forgiving, which seems far more important
than its particular choice of "iconography" when actually interacting with it.

~~~
jharrier
Actually, when dragging a disk to the trash in OSX the trash can turns into an
eject button.

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rendezvouscp
> Imagine if Android’s Gmail app made you click the trash to save something.
> We would certainly see complaining blog posts and snarky tweets all over the
> place. So why does Instapaper get a free pass?

I’m not sure that we would. There are some great designers working on Android
apps, but I don’t get the feeling that the UIs get the same critical eye,
especially because there is less consistency throughout Android.

Marco should probably have the Archive box and the trash icon in the main list
view instead of the trash icon that does both. However, I get the feeling that
he doesn’t care as much about the polish of Instapaper as some people do. Last
year I sent him an email with a list of adjustments to bring Instapaper in
line with how iOS apps should behave (e.g. table view cells should fade out
with the back-navigation transition instead of after it), but months later,
most of the issues aren’t fixed. It’s the little things that really show
polish and he doesn’t seem to be responsive to fixing the little things.

~~~
kennywinker
Have you considered that he might care a great deal, but disagree with your
specific suggestions?

~~~
rendezvouscp
Yes, but when it comes to suggestions about standard UI features, I’d be
surprised if he disagreed. Apple sets a fairly clear precedent for how
standard iOS UIs should work, and whether or not it’s in the Human Interface
Guidelines, going against the standard Apple sets feels sloppy.

I would find it more likely that, even though (IIRC) the guy handling
Instapaper’s support said he would pass it off to Marco, he simply didn’t see
my suggestions or ever do anything with them.

~~~
homosaur
I think you can maybe even make the argument that it doesn't matter if he
agrees, if he's going against the HIG or even established standards then he's
wrong about it.

~~~
kennywinker
This is definitely not true. Many of the best UI ideas coming out of iOS go
against "established standards".

This is assuming the stuff is intentional, of course. If it's unintentional,
it may simply be a low priority. Whether the UITableViewCell is de-selected
during or after the animation is a pretty subtle and innocuous ui artifact
that could nevertheless require deep changes under the hood to fix. If I was
Marco, I'd weigh the impact of leaving it how it is, with the work required to
change it, and probably end up leaving it until next time I reworked that area
of my code. One man operations require tradeoffs pretty much all the time.

You can always use Pocket if you can't handle the occasional not-very rough
edges this results in.

------
bobthedino
The button he's calling the "share" button is in fact called the "action"
button in iOS. It's supposed to bring up a context-sensitive list of actions
that you can perform at a particular point in an app. The article says "same
button, completely different uses in the same app" - well, that's how it's
meant to be used.

<http://bit.ly/OXvSyw>

~~~
kennywinker
That said, performing an action on the same object (an article) from the
detail view or the list view should probably give you the same list of
options... unless there is a very good reason not to... which there doesn't
appear to be.

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randallu
Twitter for iPad (at least prior to today, I haven't updated) uses the same
"Share" icon at the top of an embedded webview and at the bottom (so the same
icon on the screen in two places at the same time) and they also summon
different menus.

I always forget which one I want when I want to email a link to a page...

~~~
randallu
Ok, so I upgraded Twitter for iPad, and I don't think I'll ever use it again.
So that's one annoyance taken care of!

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samroesch
I'm actually a little surprised that this passed apple's App Store screening.
Clearly not in compliance with the infamous "Human Interface Guidelines".

Also irks me every time I use the app, as there is no quick way to archive and
move onto the next item.

As a paid app, and a pricey one at that, one expects a little polish.

Grrrrrr make it better Marco!

~~~
tptacek
Instapaper costs $2.99.

~~~
smackfu
It was $4.99 for a very long time, and $9.99 before that. I guess people
remember you as an expensive app even after you drop the price.

<http://appshopper.com/news/instapaper-pro>

~~~
tptacek
I have a problem with the idea that $9.99 is expensive. I bought a croissant
to go with my coffee this morning and ended up spending that.

The idea that using hours that bill at $150-$200 (current stab at journeyman
iOS dev rate) to build products that sell "pricey" at anything over $1.99 is a
problem. Problem might be the wrong word. Con.

Marco will be fine. Or he won't, I guess. That's not my problem with this line
of pricing thinking.

~~~
smackfu
It's the $10 croissant and coffee when all the other coffee shops are selling
$3 ones. It better be a damn good croissant for the extra money.

~~~
tptacek
It probably is, but that's not why I paid for it; I paid for it because it's
the coffee shop in my building and I'm not going to go out of my way to
optimize over 5-6 dollars.

If it was crappy coffee, it would not matter to me if it cost $0.50. I can get
crappy coffee for free in the lobby of the parking garage I park at.

------
mikeevans
Speaking of unintuitive archive icons, I think Android's Gmail one is
terrible.
[http://www.google.com/help/hc/images/android/android_ug_40/i...](http://www.google.com/help/hc/images/android/android_ug_40/ic_menu_archive_holo_light.png)

~~~
jonursenbach
Why? It's a file cabinet; a place where you archive things.

~~~
smackfu
It's two cyclop smiley faces on top of each other.

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molecule
"share w/ /dev/null"

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smackfu
Last time I tried to archive something, I hit the leftmost button, since a
down-arrow on a folder kind of seems like an archive function. Then I hit the
rightmost button, since it seemed like an action. Finally I hit the trash,
because it was the only one left.

One interesting thing about this design is that if there were separate
trash/archive icons, they would probably have confirmation popups, and so the
number of taps is the same either way.

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Bro_Merch
In gmail if you don't archive something it goes away on its own and it's lost.
I've been using Instapaper daily for about 3 years and have always considered
it one of my favorite iOS apps. I use the 'read later' folder for exactly what
it is. A dumping ground. A sort of limbo. When I want to save things for an
extended period I just move them into a different (non-readlater) folder. They
stay there. Not only that, but they are categorized.

There are a lot of stories/comments on HN that I disagree with, but in this
case I really don't understand what the problem is at all. Maybe I am missing
the point because I'm not using a designated "archive" function and don't
realize how much better it is. Is there a reason archiving is better?

~~~
quanticle
>In gmail if you don't archive something it goes away on its own and it's
lost.

Er, what? You don't need to explicitly archive anything in GMail. You can
leave everything in your Inbox if you want to. The only folders that get auto-
purged are Spam and Trash, where items older than 30 days get deleted.

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EngenZerO
+1. Better UI design = win!

