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How can ASR experience be better for mobile devices?

Rick Sykora

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After some recent small adjusts to the desktop toolbar, our feedback indicated that the mobile experience needs work.

Last week, Amir restored the ordered list feature that has been missing since the last forum update. Thanks @amirm!

Here is some of the feedback so far:
  1. Too many keystrokes to add an emoticon. Harder to find than it used to be too.
  2. Some devices (tablets) offer toolbars that have a lot of wasted space.
  3. No or insufficient differentiation between portrait and landscape views. I notice this on my iPad.
  4. Drop the paragraph alignment tool and replace with something more useful please!
  5. Does anybody use headings? Why is the icon a paragraph mark?
  6. Please add a multi-quote function.
Please add your comments about the above list or anything else you think detracts from a better ASR user experience.

Thanks!

Rick
 

RickSanchez

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My #1 is definitely bullets and numbered lists on mobile. After that ...

No or insufficient differentiation between portrait and landscape views. I notice this on my iPad.
Agreed, the forum app doesn't take advantage of using the extra space in the toolbar when you switch to landscape mode.

Does anybody use headings?
I don't. I don't even use these when viewing via a full desktop web browser.

Thanks for collecting the feedback and driving improvements!
 
OP
Rick Sykora

Rick Sykora

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My #1 is definitely bullets and numbered lists on mobile. After that ...


Agreed, the forum app doesn't take advantage of using the extra space in the toolbar when you switch to landscape mode.


I don't. I don't even use these when viewing via a full desktop web browser.

Thanks for collecting the feedback and driving improvements!

From one perspective, cramming as many features into the toolbar would seem to be offering more capability. However, from a UX design perspective, it is more about having the optimal set of features and so more space can be desirable. Comparing Apple to Microsoft, you can see this played out:

Apple forum toolbar

1644243250445.png


vs Microsoft forum toolbar

1644243387647.png


While not the only usability issue on ASR, deciding a more focused vs fuller featured toolbar would give Amir high level guidance so he can more readily remediate.

Thanks for the feedback!
 

RickSanchez

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That makes sense. To your point it would be good to know what toolbar features are "high value" (and/or used the most often) for ASR members. Those then get prioritized as visible in the mobile toolbar, and what's left can be added into one or more of those "etc." drop-downs in the toolbar. (The three vertically aligned dots.) Not speaking for myself here but I'm guessing the prime candidates for those high value (mobile) toolbar features would be:
  • Bold
  • Italic
  • Lists (bullets and/or numbered)
  • URL
  • Image
  • Quote
  • Emojis
Some others for consideration would be:
  • Media?
  • Spoiler?
I have zero stats to back up my suggestions here, just a rough sense of reading ASR threads and seeing what people include in posts. I get the sense that (regardless of input device) people only very rarely use the rest of the options: font size, font color, strikethrough, alignment, tables, etc.
 

drmevo

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New member here. Not being able to jump to the next page or last page of a thread (let alone select a page somewhere in between) at the top of any given page is a departure from most forums I participate in. Perhaps we’re meant to use the quick scroll arrows to get to the bottom and then use the page navigation options from there, but I still prefer to have them at the top as well.
 
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