Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Think before you truncate

There is a convention on Windows Phone to not wrap text but let it overflow the right edge of the screen.
This shouldn't always be done though.
There are cases where the text at the end of a sentence is REALLY important and it's more important to compromise the convention or the layout so that the information that matters can be seen.

Take a look at these directions (from the maps app).
In the second step, is the street I should take on the right or the left?
It's important I know. 
This shouldn't have been clipped.
The arrow doesn't make it obviously clear either. 


Fortunately, in this case, the apps supports rotation and by switching to landscape I can see that I need to take the road on the left.



It's a work around for this instance but not all apps are as good.
Even in this case though it would have been better if the app didn't give me that initial moment of confusion and frustration.

Is there anything you could do to your apps to make sure that the most important information is always visible?
Or would supporting both portrait and landscape orientations in your app allow the people using it to see things more clearly?


1 comment:

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