Affordance (availability) and design

IOS keyboard

Why is iOS's keyboard so good that the virtual keyboards of other systems are basically larger than iOS keyboards in size, and their visual experience or operating experience looks like a slag, why?

Before comparing the analysis, it is explained that, although the analysis is a reverse process, but here I think that interpretive analysis is more valuable than guessing the designer's intentions, and when asked "Why do you design This", you should look beyond the designer's own intention, even if some of the given understanding is completely divorced from the designer's intentions and even against it.

The iOS keyboard is the first ancestor of the (next generation) virtual Screen Keyboard, which has a lot of innovative design and technology applications, and Apple made a detailed, comprehensive video presentation, one of which is the IOS keyboard introduction, and the potato video (see this on Youtube address). Steve Jobs's introduction of the IPhone in WWDC 2007 began with a revolutionary user interface, starting with a list of four full keyboard handsets-called smartphones-from Moto Q, BlackBerry, Palm Treo and Nokia E62, which were Keys and operations are immutable, and whether or not you need it is always there, and different applications require different user interfaces. The IOS virtual keyboard only appears when needed, uses different keyboards in different applications, and replaces the space bar with the input URL. ",". com "and"/"and so on with the URL input keys. At the same time the virtual keyboard needs to solve the problem of precision and efficiency easy and quick input, using a magnifying glass for easy cursor repositioning, such as "notorious" Hot word automatic correction (English), in addition to the use of dictionaries and contacts and other phrase matching to modify, you can also match the input region, such as the introduction of the video will " Ouzza "Into the pizza", there is also an innovative design, according to the dictionary to predict the next letter, in real time to change the keyboard corresponding to the size of the touch area, so that these letters more easily triggered, such as the input "Tim", then the next "e" than the adjacent "W" and "R" The touch area is large, because "time" is a common word, and there are no "TIMW" and "TIMR" in these two English words.

In Apple's patents, there are a number of items related to the IOS keyboard, and it is important to dynamically change the touch area according to the next letter, patent number 7,900,156 is named "Activating virtual keys of a touch-screen vir tual keyboard ", the corresponding patent application number in China is 200,680,033,988 known as" touch-screen virtual keyboard virtual key ", the patent content is a generalization of the above realization, the change of the touch area is generalized as the key how to trigger according to the touch position, The touch position and the trigger key are determined by distance (for example, which button is triggered by a small distance), at the same time introduce a weight, then the above implementation, the next "E" than "W" and "R" has a greater weight, that is, "E" more than the touch range, the patent example of another implementation, is "delete "The weight of the key is set to small, it is more difficult to trigger." In addition, in the design patent, there are two notable, one is d644,238 the entire keyboard design, the other d621,848 is about the press when pressed when the enlarged keyboard sign.

We first from the size of the IOS keyboard design, pictured above is the IPhone 4 after the Retina screen interface, the number of units labeled PX, in fact, is the 320*480 screen twice times, before and after the keyboard design has not changed, if converted into the actual size of the unit mm, then similar to the px/326* 25.4=2.49 mm. How these dimensions are determined, if from the designer's point of view, the process of the decision is both logical and perceptual, so our analysis cannot be pushed back like math. IOS keyboard height of 430 px (320*480 resolution for 215 PX, in fact, 430 px above there are 2 px black line), just in the middle of the screen is down to PX, perhaps to ask a question is why the keyboard is not half of the screen? This size is supported by the interior, but if you set it in exactly half, then it is easy to get a sense of depression in proportion (the equalization is easier to identify). The button height of the PX is 5.92 mm,52 px key width is 4.05 mm,12 px key spacing is 0.93 mm,32 px key spacing and word height is 2.49 Mm,ios of HIG recommended minimum touch operation element is 44*44 Point, Convert to mm unit 6.90,windows Phone 7 HIG also said that the minimum touch target height is 7 mm (followed by the keyboard and link can be an exception, because there is additional dynamic compensation). There must be a lot of human dimensions for reference, such as horizontal dimensions, and in addition to relying on these statistical data from the design point of view, it is more important to combine experience and experience, after all, in such a small area, depending on the latter more quickly. We can see from the size of the IOS keyboard that they are carefully arranged, that is, "scale."

Compare the Android keyboard and IOS keyboard to the size of the entity. Why not use other Chinese input method keyboard, because these keyboards mostly imitate the IOS keyboard, and there are several in the size is not elegant, such as up and down two rows of buttons or gaps are not unified, there are 1 px gap, So they don't have any reference value. The Android keyboard also has a bizarre size, such as the rounded corners of the 2px,2 px, which are normally not expressive (only 3 pixels are involved), especially the dense arrangement of keyboards, which makes people feel uncomfortable.