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Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

I had to laugh: when pushing the 'menu' button in Android:

> (The keyboard does not always appear. Despite much experimentation, we are unable to come up with the rules that govern when this will or will not occur.)

So apparently these 'user interface experts' have been unable to figure out what I and everybody else I know managed to understand implicitly without any particular effort: that a long press is a different action to a short press. No wonder they think it is a poor UI - they must be utterly confused all over the place. But honestly, this is a fairly common UI concept in space / button limited devices. I somehow doubt they are really as 'expert' as they suggest if they haven't come across this before.

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I've had a N1 for several months now and I didn't know that pressing the menu button for a longer time is different from pressing it briefly. Nor did I notice the same concept for other GUI elements. Sorry, but you are wrong.

Do you also claim to be a user interface expert and write articles about it?

This technique is pervasive throughout Android. You should try long pressing on every UI element - especially the home button and the home screen - to see all the different actions you can do.

The point is not "can a user interface understand this menu", the point is "can an average user understand this interface".

I agree that once the different behavior emerges, it might not be that hard to find the source. But I am not sure - the keyboard never appeared for me because I never pressed the menu button for a longer time. Now I tried it and it worked, but I already knew why because of the article.

In the other hand, I use my iPod Touch only very rarely. I think there is supposed to be some kind of tap bar (I know this from reading about PhoneGap), and I managed to bring up a menu once in a game I have installed by tapping around on the screen wildly. I was unable to bring it up a second time, so no, it is not always easy to identify the source of some activity.

Users will have to acquire some basic vocabulary on their own, or the language of interaction just won't be rich enough to talk with them.

They only need a few simple things, like long touch or double click. Anybody born after these conventions are introduced will never remember how they learned them, they'll just be second nature. Early adopters may suffer a bit before they stumble on them.

which android version?

do you mean the "menu" hardware button, or the "home" hardware button?

on android 2.0.1, holding the menu button does nothing. long-press only does anything on the home button (-> task switching). holding the menu button just shows me hotkeys for menu items.

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