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Overview:
One of the more vocal complaints regarding the Storm and Storm 2 is the phone’s clunky zoom interface when viewing photos and web pages. In current iterations of the OS, zooming is called by double tapping a photo or non-hyperlinked portion of a webpage. This double tap heuristic causes the page or photo to jump to a higher magnification. Zooming out is not able to be performed via touch heuristic. The only way to zoom out is to press the bb menu key and selecting ‘zoom out’.
Devices employing multitouch are more effectively able to accomplish the above by utilizing the “pinch zoom” touch heuristic which essentially shrinks or enlarges a photo or webpage by touching both index finger and thumb to the touch screen interface and bringing them closer together (akin to a pinching motion) for zooming out or farther apart for zooming in. Once employed, this heuristic becomes very intuitive. Unfortunately, this touch heuristic is generally considered to be protected by a patent filed in January of last year by Apple, Inc. Although other devices may employ variations of this touch heuristic (Palm and Motorola), it is not entirely clear as to whether doing so violates Apple's patent.
As such, I set out to conceptualize and document a touch heuristic to handle zooming that was:
a) Just as intuitive as the multitouch pinch zoom heuristic
b) relied upon touch heuristics already employed in the operating system and therefore considered free to utilize without infringing on competitor’s patents.
The touch heuristic I came up with could best be described as ‘grip zoom’. It is called by enacting a combination of the long press touch heuristic and the swipe touch heuristic.
Background:
The long press touch heuristic utilizes the concept of time to call an alternate set of commands to the OS. The user presses his finger on the screen akin to a normal screen press, but also holds his finger in place. After a predetermined amount of time has passed, an alternate command or set of commands becomes available as compared to the command or set of commands evoked from a standard screen press. Examples of this touch heuristic in the current Storm operating system include typing capitalized letters without the need to hit the shift key, and contextual email filtering by pressing and holding your finger on an author of an email filter the view to other emails written by that author.
The swipe heuristic is even more prevalent in the operating system, and utilizes a finger swipe across the touch screen to initiate contextual commands. Vertical examples of this touch heuristic include calling the virtual keyboard from the home screen by swiping up (this function has since been disabled) or retiring the virtual keyboard by swiping down. Horizontal examples of this touch heuristic include cycling through photos in the photo viewer or cycling through featured applications in App World.
Both touch heuristics have been part of the Storm’s operating system since day one, and in the case of the long press, have been employed in RIM devices for many years. Combining these two touch heuristics is essentially the foundation for the grip zoom.
Grip Zoom Process:
When viewing a webpage or photo, if the user wishes to zoom, he simply employs the long press touch heuristic on the photo or non-hyperlinked version of the webpage. After a predetermined period of time has passed (1-2 seconds) a translucent zoom bar becomes superimposed on the page or photo on the right. This is considered the ‘grip’.
At that point, by swiping up, the user can zoom in. By swiping down, the user can zoom out. Removing one’s finger from the screen does not automatically retire the zoom bar as it too will persist for 1 to 2 seconds before fading away. This is useful since if the user immediately wishes to zoom in again or zoom back out via a second pass, they can do so without having to ‘grip’ the photo again to call the zoom bar.
Zooming in and out is exclusively handled via vertical swipe heuristics. However, panning and/or rotating can be employed in the same motion as zooming by swiping in both a vertical and horizontal direction. Any swipe that is 30 degrees or more from the y axis could both zoom and pan. An alternate or additional suggestion would be a completely horizontal swipe while the zoom bar is still present to rotate photos clockwise (right swipe) or counter clockwise (left swipe). Page viewing could be governed exclusively by the pan/zoom grip, while photo viewing could be governed by a combination of the pan/zoom grip or rotate/zoom grip. Alternatively, this could be an option to set in the photo viewer.
In any event, double tapping a zoomed photo could restore it to normal size and retire the zoom bar simultaneously.
Visual Aids:
The following photos crudely illustrate the grip zoom.
Original Photo
User presses his finger on the screen and holds it there (press hold touch heuristic)
After a predetermined period of time, the translucent zoom bar appears.
The user can swipe up to zoom in.
Alternatively, the user can employ the veritcal and horizontal space on the touch screen to simultaneously zoom and pan.
Double tapping retires the zoom bar and restores the photo to it's original view
NOT SHOWN: Process for photo rotation (vertical swipe), process to zoom out (downward swipe), and 'second pass' zoom (reswiping before zoom bar fades).
Conclusion:
Like the pinch zoom, cognitive modeling suggests once the user becomes familiar with this new heuristic, it will become equally intuitive, and would certainly be an improvement over the current zoom processes employed by RIM in their touchscreen enabled devices.
The benefit of this heuristic is it essentially accomplishes the same as the pinch zoom mulititouch heuristic via single touch. The only detriment is the time interval required to call this new heuristic into being (an extra 1-2 seconds).Last edited by mikestorm; 01-22-10 at 02:00 PM. Reason: Fix two typos
01-22-10 01:24 PM
