App Design And Usability Suggestions

[austincondiff]

Hello,

I had a suggestion that might improve the usability and ease of use of the Gospel library app.

When you are in a chapter of scripture or in a book/article, it would be helpful to add two interactions.

1. When you swipe down to scroll up, after you reach the top of the chapter, you get an elastic effect. Instead of the pull to refresh interaction, it would be nice to pull to reveal the breadcrumbs. When pulling further it would go up a level to see the list of chapters. I could make an animated mockup of this if you would like.

2. When swiping up to scroll down, once you reach the bottom of the chapter, you get an elastic effect. If you scroll further it might be nice to go to the next chapter. The next chapter wouldn't be in the natural flow of the previous chapter (just appended to it) it would be a separate view animated up in accordance to the distance of your swipe gesture. One you reach a certain threshold, the new chapter completes the action of animating up and replacing the previous chapters view.

Although, I do see this might introduce confusion in this paradigm. (Scroll up to go up a level, scroll down to go to the next chapter? Shouldn't scrolling up go to the previous chapter instead?) A simple text label should resolve this concern. A small "Chapter [current +1]" with an arrow that animates to be the title of the next chapter as you scroll should be fine. If you find this creates too much confusion in your user testing sessions then ignore #2.

3. Just as you can swipe left and right to go to a next or previous chapter, I think the same should be true on higher levels (for example, if you are looking at a list of chapters in First Nephi, swiping left would reveal a list of chapters in second Nephi). Swiping left in a list of books in the New Testament would reveal books in the Book of Mormon.

Let me know if you have any additional questions or want to see those animated mocks. Thank you for your time and consideration.

[sbradshaw]

I agree with (3), however, I think both (1) and (2) would be confusing to users because 1) no other reading apps behave this way, which by itself isn't a problem, but also 2) any apps that do have actions associated with a pull from the top or bottom are always refresh, from the top, or jump to the top, from the bottom.

[austincondiff]

@sbradshaw I have two examples off the top of my head.

1. In the Facebook app and quite a few others when you tap a photo, you drag the photo down or swipe down and you go back to your news feed.

2. In Google inbox which is focused on reading, you tap on an email, swipe down past the top of the email and it closes into the email list. Very fluid and natural feeling once you use it.