ForumsQuestionsWhy isn't note edit consistent in UI with title edit?


Why isn't note edit consistent in UI with title edit?
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mr_many_notes

Posted: Jul 11, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
On iPod Touch (or iPhone), when you have a task which has various text fields (title, note), why is the whole UI utterly different when editing the title than from editing the title?!? And why is it utterly different from standard iPhone apps like Contacts?!?

To compare:
a) Inconsistent edit mechanism:
Click on Task Title -> goes straight into "Edit Title" screen where can edit directly Title. (Hooray!!)
Click on Read Note -> goes to a "Task Details" screen where you have to click "Edit" to actually edit the note. (Groan!!)

b) Inconsistent save/cancel mechanism:
For "Edit Title" to save you click "Task Details" (!) or "Done", and there is no cancel at all!! (Groan!!)
For edit of "Task Details", you click "Save" to save and "Cancel" to cancel (Hooray!!)

I don't think that there needs to be any special "Edit" button for the task note. For example, when you edit a document in MS Word, you don't go into a document and then click edit! When you go into a document, you go into the document; you can then either Cancel or Save.

I think that a Task Note is just a text field like the Task title and so the UI should be identical for both, i.e. if you click on the title or the note, you go directly into Edit mode on the item and there are "Cancel" and "Save" buttons.

In summary: make Title and Task note edit function the same, with going direct into edit mode with both having a Cancel and Save button. (This is how it works for iPhone contacts fields.)
Anders

Posted: Jul 11, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
a) Well, it seems to make some sense at least to me. In the task details page, you can already read the title, so then by clicking on it, you are effectively saying you want to edit it. The note takes another step to even read, but once you are viewing it, you must perform an action (hit edit) to edit it just like the title.

b) Hmm... I see what you mean.

I'm not sure why you would want it to be more like Contacts (or Word for that matter), and in fact most iPhone task mangers seem to work more like Toodledo does with these fields, but I can appreciate the desire for greater consistency. I actually had a problem with the fact that notes were not displayed in the task details page when I first started using the app,n but I have started to get used to it, and I'm not sure I would want that anymore.

BTW, I believe the different UI used for notes is what allows them to have active links like URLs and phone numbers, and if you could just touch to edit, that would make it difficult to also be able to touch to follow links.


This message was edited Jul 11, 2009.
Ido

Posted: Jul 12, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I would appreciate It if adding a new note put me directly in edit mode. I don't see the value of clicking twice in that case.
Ido

Posted: Jul 12, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Second thought. I would prefer it if I could scroll down to the note rather than go through a modal change. It's useful to be able to rapidly glance back and forth between task and note.
Anders

Posted: Jul 12, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I definitely agree that it doesn't make much sense to have to hit Edit when adding a new note to a task. The only reason that I'm not completely for having Notes in line with the other task details is that I like to use subtasks nested, and you must already scroll down below all the task fields to get to them, so having Notes, whch can be fairly long, on that screen as well would make subtasks more of a hassle to get to. Also, and I hope Toodledo will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the app uses a special UI available in the SDK to make links in the Note field clickable, and I'm not sure that UI element is compatible with list-type views necesarry for displaying the various other fields.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jul 14, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
Thanks for the suggestions. We are working on some improvements to the way notes are added/edited/viewed.

For the record, the reason a note appears in read-only mode is because this is the only way that phone numbers and links will be clickable.
mr_many_notes

Posted: Jul 23, 2009
Score: 0 Reference
I will keep requesting plain old "Cancel" and "Save" buttons for the iPod Edit Title, and consistency both within the application and with other appplications.

Here's an article on a similar theme:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/iphone-apps-design-mistakes-overblown-visuals/

OK, Toodledo doesn't overdesign, but it doesn't yet do a very good job on consistency.
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