Capacitive Buttons, In Defense of

What a better way to start a new blog then to write a counterpoint to someone you look up to? Lukas Mathis, of ignorethecode.net and Designed for Use, argues that capacitive buttons are a detriment to not only phones, but all devices that use them.

I certainly don’t feel so strongly for or against these buttons. I’ve never really give them much thought—expect for on the 3rd generation iPod, where I had nothing but disdain for them. They work the way I expect and never misfire. Well, let’s think about them.

Pros

• Low failure rate (I’m tempted to say no failure rate)
• Sexy (If only I could find a woman who lit up)
• Notifications (WebOS alerts you without wasting battery for the LCD)

Cons

• Accidental touches

Touchscreens

We can probably agree that any phone worth it’s weight these days is a touchscreen smartphone. And any capacitive buttons are situated right below said touchscreen. Are they so different? Grazing either will result in an undesired action; people know to keep their hands off. Capacitive buttons are never moving from the chin of the phone (where nobody holds it) and always resulting in the same action (back button silliness notwithstanding). They’re more static extensions of the touchscreen than anything else.

iPhone

The iPhone doesn’t use capacitive buttons. There’s one way and one way only to exit an app: the physical home button. Any “accidental presses” are handled by the app, because they only happen at that level. But how many times do you press that home button each time you use your phone? At least once, and sadly, it feels like the cheapest button on the phone. Double clicking for multitasking is painful since your thumb just doesn’t rotate as well as your index finger.

Android & Windows Phone

Android and Windows Phone use three or four capacitive buttons just below the touchscreen. These are the phones that have stirred the controversy. I’ve never used WP, but I can assume the same things hold true as they do for the Nexus S. Pressing the home button will “close” the current app. The back button will take you back one screen until the app closes. The search button will change to search mode. And the menu button will toggle the menu. These are all radically different interactions.

Accidentally pressing the home button means finding the apps icon again (who knows where you put it?). Pressing the back button means redoing your last action (or finding the app icon). The search and menu button mean pressing them once more to toggle back.

WebOS

WebOS cherishes its capacitive area. It’s more than just a button, it’s also a swipe gesture pad. Instead of wasting 44 pixels for a navigation bar just to get back one screen, WebOS phones have the user swipe back just below the touchscreen. The home button doesn’t close an app, it just pushes it back a few virtual inches so you can get to your other apps.

I’d be shocked if anyone swiped without meaning to. I can see hitting the home button unintentionally, but so what? The app just moves back a little. Nothing is destroyed and returning to your task is one tap away.

Destruction

There’s the true con: destruction. When you graze the iPhone screen, only the app reacts, not the system. When you tap Android’s menu button, it just toggles the menu—something that’s easy to undo. But when you hit Android’s home button, good luck finding that app in your mess of icons.

Confirm or Undo

Whenever the user is about to do a destructive task, the system should give them two back-up options: confirm or undo. Android buttons undo (albeit though multiple steps at times). It makes the most sense, who wants to see “do you want to close this app? Yes or No” everytime they want to do something else?

Well, WebOS confirms. If you didn’t mean to hit the home button, just tap the app again to cancel. If you wanted to close it, just swipe it up and throw it out. It’s not as simple as pressing down hard to close an iPhone app, but it’s a lot more elegant than grazing to close an Android app.

Solution

Since Android is the only one with the problem (and I’ve never used Windows Phone 7), it’s the only one that needs a solution (short of getting rid of them). Search and menu are fine, they’re toggles. Long pressing is okay, but that can be used for other things (multitasking). The best option, as I see it, is to turn home into a toggle. Currently, the stock home button does nothing on the home screen itself (although I have mine set up to load the app drawer). What if it loaded the last app? An easy undo for grazers, and a quick toggle back and forth for people who have fancy widgets they want to check. The back button has plenty of problems, but disabling the ability to close the app would be a good start (and make the apps feel more solid and safe). Oh yeah, and turn them off when I’m using a clock app at night.