Paper is a nice app but the biggest problem is that it's still full of garbage. Even though I've unsubscribed from the worst offenders of my FB friends, 90% of what's in my news feed is still crap.<p>Paper kills the ability to quickly scan the feed for the 10 percent of stuff that might interest me even momentarily. I can either see one thing at a time with the stories full screen, or three things at a time with them in an awkward location at the bottom of the screen and one of them (for which there is a 90 percent chance that I don't want to see it) taking up the top two-thirds of the screen.<p>It's certainly pretty and with some content <i>other than</i> my Facebook feed, it might be a good interface. It would be perfect if I <i>wanted</i> to read 90 percent of this stuff.<p>But that's the whole idea. It's to keep you more engaged. But that's not how I use Facebook. I don't want to "engage" with it. I've got a million things competing for my attention and most of them are better than my Facebook feed. I want to get in, find the interesting stuff and then get the hell out. I suspect I'm not the only one.
Simple solution: swipe <i>up</i> on the carousel to make the cards full-screen, then browse. The whole UI works on this paradigm, so it may not be obvious at first, but it will be if this style of app continues.
Am I the only one who is right-handed, but doesn't hold their iPhone like that? I rest the bottom of the phone on the top side of my pinky finger, which puts it higher in my hand and doesn't require the "hook" to swipe right-to-left in the bottom half of the screen.
Facebook Paper is a great example of ignoring ergonomic design to achieve a more aesthetically pleasing view, a trend all too common in app design these days.
Now I'm paranoid that I might be a weirdo for holding my phone primarily in my left hand even though I'm right-handed. Am I alone in that? I think the reason I do it is because text and navigation are generally left-to-right, so having my thumb on the left side of the screen feels more natural. The animation in this post seems to confirm that.
I'm always the guy who stands up for Facebook UI updates, so why do I hate Paper so much?<p>I think it's the fact that I am forced to touch, and swipe through stories I don't give a shit about. At all. Does anyone who is fellating the Paper UI actually use Facebook? You sure you <i>really</i> want to pan through hundreds of uninteresting posts...because it <i>looks cool</i>? I don't. I love the transitions and how responsive the UI is, but would I use this to take an overview of my friend's activity? Unlikely.
On a separate matter, how does Facebook Paper get its permissions? I have the Facebook app installed on my iPhone, but I don't have Facebook linked to the operating system. When I installed Paper, I was never prompted to login. Are they able to read a piece of information shared by the normal Facebook app in order to authenticate Paper users without requiring an additional login? Doesn't that violate the sandboxing of application data, or are they able to circumvent those policies since it's all associated with the same app publisher?
I've been fascinated with phone placement in hands for product shots.<p>It always seemed like a little bit of a cheat - especially when the elongated 5 came out - just to show one handed use of a device is possible.<p>For me at least, the way the phone is positioned is hardly comfortable. The bottom right corner at the base of the thumb exacerbates the problem the author's talking about. When I hold the phone higher in my hand with the bottom closer to the base of the index, all thumb-hook problems tend to go away.<p>Obviously this is anecdotal, but I'd love to see some studies about how people hold their phones. In some respects, I've always felt one-handed device usage was neglected by manufacturers, but I probably didn't fully understand how many users simply use two hands. I imagine data around grips (similar to [this](<a href="http://www.razerzone.com/mouseguide/ergonomic)" rel="nofollow">http://www.razerzone.com/mouseguide/ergonomic)</a>) and hands used for phones will be somewhat surprising.
Love Paper, 100% agree with you - I hate the Facebook iOS app and never want to open it again, but I'm missing the classic Apple vertical scroll view because it's just soooo good.<p>I'm probably not adding too much to this discussion since I'm just agreeing, but there it is.
From the article:
<i>All it requires is shrinking the space allocated to the Topic section above, and increasing the space allocated to the story navigation by 50 pixels. I think this actually supports the mission of the app even more — to push you to read stories you find interesting</i><p>I agree with this 100%. The lower navigation elements are WAY TOO small.<p>Another option (if any Paper developers are listening) would be to allow dynamic re-sizing of the lower navigational elements.<p>This is already allowed (it grows as you swipe up) - it just isn't "sticky".
I really love paper, but totally agree here. I've also noticed that while I scroll through on the bottom usually my thumb is covering up the content I want to see.<p>Maybe I just have big thumbs.
I've followed LukeW's version of reachable areas of the screen in my UI design. I think you've improved upon his.<p>I also find it fascinating how Facebook's main iOS app and Paper (per your article) conflict with your reachable zone. In the major app, they relegate the Search action in the farthest corner from right hand users. In addition, their overflow button on the bottom tab bar sits in the other 'Ow' zone.<p>Great write up.
I just hold the phone a little higher up in my hand and I don't seem to run into this issue. meh..<p>That said, I prefer having an option of manually refreshing the UI. When I'm connected to a spotty 3G tower - I don't get any indication if its fetching data or not. I suppose I can drag down the main UI and expose the iOS status bar and see the little circular progress bar, but not an ideal situation.
Biggest problem I had with my perusal of the app was the text on the lower cards is just way too small to be legible from a reading distance. Making the cards full-screen just slows down my interaction with it, requiring a swipe for every card.<p>Overall, it's a good interface for reading news articles and blog posts. It seemed like a terrible interface for going through status updates and wall posts.
I get what he's saying - but the swipe-zone of Facebook Paper is actually quite a large area - well into the "natural" zone. While the user may feel inclined to swipe near the bottom-right corner of the screen, they can actually swipe near the center of the phone's display towards the left-edge, and achieve the same effect.
I don't really have the issue with comfort as described here, but it does suck that the main source of mass content consumption (the bottom carousel) is mostly blocked by the natural place your thumb would be. Viewing content in full-screen is too slow for something like facebook, of which many of the posts you don't care much about.
This solution in this particular case also reduces the wasted space of the hero image across the top. Given FB's poor content, it is usually a stupid meme or some blurry cell-phone pic that was posted 2 days ago. Or maybe that's just my experience so far. But the news across the bottom seems way more useful then the hero image.
I am right handed but I seem to split it for phone usage, and I also use both hands a lot of the time. I don't wish to diminish the point that this may be and for people who use the app as pictured it may be painful, but insinuating that 90% of people will do so just because nearly 90% are right handed is not correct.
I don't have an iPhone and have used one maybe twice, but the region the article is talking about is where the software keyboard is, isn't it? I find it difficult to imagine that the most common way of holding an iPhone is one that keeps the user from typing.
This! Right after I had written other apps would feel ancient when compared to Paper<p>(<a href="http://appiterate.com/does-your-mobile-app-feel-ancient/" rel="nofollow">http://appiterate.com/does-your-mobile-app-feel-ancient/</a>)
Inspired by a conversation over at Product Hunt: <a href="http://www.producthunt.co/posts/1105" rel="nofollow">http://www.producthunt.co/posts/1105</a>