Skip to Main Content
Designing Gestural Interfaces
book

Designing Gestural Interfaces

by Dan Saffer
November 2008
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
272 pages
9h 16m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Designing Gestural Interfaces

TAP TO STOP

WHAT

When another action, such as scrolling, is in progress, tapping the screen stops the action.

USE WHEN

Use Tap to Stop when there is an ongoing action that takes an extended time to perform (more than several seconds) and that a user might want to interrupt—especially if the ongoing action is displaying a set of screens or objects that the user might want to act on (e.g., a menu item or a list of content).

WHY

This pattern allows users to manually stop a moving object, something humans expect to be able to do with their hands.

HOW

Tap to Stop can cancel/stop an ongoing action or simply pause the action, depending on need. If it is pausing an ongoing action, a second, distinct tap should restart the action.

EXAMPLES

Pocket Player for Windows Mobile allows taps to stop scrolls. Courtesy Conduits Technologies, Inc.

Figure 3-25. Pocket Player for Windows Mobile allows taps to stop scrolls. Courtesy Conduits Technologies, Inc.

The Starbucks version of iTunes on the iPhone allows users to scroll through a list of songs recently played in the store. Tapping the scrolling list stops it. Courtesy Nick Starr.

Figure 3-26. The Starbucks version of iTunes on the iPhone allows users to scroll through a list of songs recently played in the store. Tapping the scrolling list stops it. Courtesy Nick Starr.

The Zune allows you to stop scrolling lists with a tap. Courtesy Microsoft.

Figure 3-27. The Zune allows you to stop scrolling lists with a tap. Courtesy Microsoft.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Designing Web Interfaces

Designing Web Interfaces

Bill Scott, Theresa Neil
Designing Mobile Interfaces

Designing Mobile Interfaces

Steven Hoober, Eric Berkman
Designing Social Interfaces, 2nd Edition

Designing Social Interfaces, 2nd Edition

Christian Crumlish, Erin Malone
Interaction design for tangible interfaces

Interaction design for tangible interfaces

Stephen P. Anderson, Jonathan Follett

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596156756Errata