linersouthern.blogg.se - The 100 click and drag

#The 100 click and drag full#

Unfortunately, icons in use for this purpose are not nearly as universal as designers may think and they are often a poor visual metaphor. (In some applications the user need not click exactly on the grab handle icon, but its purpose remains the same.) Grab handle icons communicate that drag–and–drop is available and provide a safe target to click and drag without activating other nearby controls. There are two types of visual signifiers for grabbability: grab-handle icons and cursor changes. While a button can have a subtle drop shadow to indicate that it is raised and clickable, a drag–and–drop signifier has to signal two functions - (1) that the item is “grabbable” and (2) what dragging it somewhere will accomplish (moving or resizing). Clear Signifiers and Feedback for Drag–and–DropĬreating an obvious signifier for drag–and–drop is challenging. These two capabilities need different microinteraction design to succeed as intuitive, responsive interfaces. All the interactions that drag–and–drop is used for can be grouped in two main types: resizing objects and moving objects. When appropriate, drag–and–drop is well understood, and quickly adopted by users. In some situations, alternative interactions can replace drag-and-drop completely on mobile, for example, using menus to move a file to a different folder can be less error-prone than drag-and-drop. In many cases, the downsides of drag–and–drop can be addressed by an accompanying more-precise interaction for example, dragging a shape in Photoshop can get it to the general desired area, and then arrow keys can be used to precisely position it. During usability testing, observe if users attempt to drag–and–drop objects (but don’t ask them about it directly). Thus, it often results in errors - the user drops an item in the wrong spot, and has to start all over again.īecause it is inherently a tricky physical interaction, understand your users’ mental model for the action that it will implement to make sure that they expect to use it. The downsides to drag–and–drop are that it can be inefficient, imprecise, and even physically challenging, especially over long distances: if they run out of room, users might need to reposition their mouse or adjust their finger on a touchscreen. For many operations, drag–and–drop makes the actions visible and immediate and can thus improve usability. The classic example is dragging a file icon to the trash icon and dropping it there, causing the corresponding file to be deleted.

#The 100 click and drag full#

But the movement may also trigger a full command. Or, moving a circle in a drawing program changes the look of the picture being drawn. For example, moving a column divider to the right makes that table column wider. The outcome of all these steps may simply be that the object has been relocated.

Finally, the user deselects the object - for example, by letting go of the mouse button.

This is the “drag” part of the operation.

While keeping the object selected (e.g., by continuous pressure on the mouse button), the user then moves the pointing device (mouse, finger, etc.) to some desired target.

Other selection techniques are possible, but not as common - for example, speech (“select the red car”) or “grabbing” an object in a VR or AR environment.

To initiate the interaction, users acquire an object - using a mouse or touch gesture (such as a mouse click or, respectively, a long press).

(In principle, we can drag invisible objects, but usability would surely suffer.)

As with all direct-manipulation interactions, items of interest need to be visible on the screen - for example, icons, thumbnails, or explicit interface elements, such as column dividers in a table or spreadsheet.

It is a type of direct manipulation, particularly useful for grouping, reordering, moving, or resizing objects.

Drag–and–drop has been around since the dawn of GUIs and is familiar to most users.