

Twitter for Android: A closer look at Android’s evolving UI patterns - yanw
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/05/twitter-for-android-closer-look-at.html

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commandar
I seem to be in the minority, but I'm not a huge fan of the UI design in the
new official Twitter app. My biggest complaints:

Pattern 3: The Dashboard

Not a huge fan of this, mainly because it feels redundant and adds to the
app's inconsistency. _Some_ features can be accessed directly from the tweet
screen while others require you to navigate back to the dashboard. Where
Android apps have traditionally allowed direct navigation between functions by
way of the Menu button on the phone, Twitter drops that functionality pretty
much entirely.

Pattern 4: The Action Bar

Not a bad idea in and of itself, but it feels poorly implemented to me. The
biggest issue isn't the action bar itself, but the fact that they chose to add
a second, permanent UI bar directly below it for navigation between tweets,
mentions, and favorites. If you're using the phone in landscape mode, you've
lost nearly a third of your vertical screen real estate to permanent UI
elements. The UI should get out of my way and let me interact with content.

This also plays into my complaint about Pattern 3 and inconsistent navigation
between features. This secondary bar replicates part, but not all, of the
functionality of the the dashboard. You can't really be sure which navigation
path is going to be open to you until you follow one.

Pattern 6: QuickActions

Again, the primary issue here is consistency. The QuickAction bar pops up
above a tweet when you tap it... except when it doesn't. If a tweet is too far
up the screen when you tap it, the QuickAction bar pops up below the tweet.
(And because of the vertical screen real estate problem from Pattern 4, your
chances of not having enough screen space for the bar in landscape mode and
running into it behaving inconsistently are as good as not). Not a major,
major issue, but it is slightly jarring. If there's not enough space to
display the QuickAction bar in a consistent location, it seems to me that the
app should scroll the timeline down so that there is.

Personally, I'd also be in favor of making that consistent location _below_
the selected tweet -- it's much easier to tap once and then again with your
thumb by moving down than it is to do the reverse since it mimics the natural
motion of balling your hand. I feel like I'm having the stretch to reach the
newly revealed UI elements in the official app.

I guess the thing for me is that I agree with everyone that this app is one of
the prettiest on the Android platform, and I'm thrilled to see contact syncing
expanding beyond Facebook; I just haven't understood the raves about the UX
end of the app. It's certainly not bad, but I came away feeling like the whole
thing was half-baked from a usability perspective. There's definitely a lot of
potential here, but it needs some serious interface work before it becomes my
daily use Twitter app.

------
Tichy
I didn't understand what Contacts Sync would do, so I skipped it, just to be
safe. Who knows, worst case it would import everybody I follow on Twitter into
my address book.

I am still not sure what it does. The only thing I can imagine is comparing
email addresses and adding the Twitter name to address book entries if email
addresses match.

