It’s not a button to avoid an accidental press, because the false positive means emergency services are dispatched… and with enough false positives, the service stops being useful (wolf crying).
It's pretty crazy that people might be depending* on an Ultra model doing some extreme outdoors activity, and it turns itself into a little brick because it's tapping against something slightly conductive.
*—Don't do this with any tech.
so if I actually fell and broke my thumb, I won't be able to easily activate it.
Swiping is a terrible gesture, nothing related to "emergency" should be linked to swiping.
It's much better to put there a "DID NOT FALL" button than a swipable element to avoid false positives.
False positives are still better than false negatives, in these circumstances.
Otherwise, you can use your remaining four fingers to swipe. Or your nose. Or Siri. Or remove the watch with your teeth and use the other hand.
But more obviously, broken thumbs still swipe too.
Swiping should be used for low priority confirmations, like confirming you want to buy a subscription or pay for some in-game addon.
In my opinion it shouldn't be used to answer phone calls either.
A button would mean I'd answer endless calls by accident, in my pocket. No, sensors don't prevent this. Yes, my leg, through my pocket fabric, can push buttons.
Did you test all of this, before deciding a button is better?
That's honestly not a design issue.
The design of the following device was never criticized because answering a phone call was "too easy"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3310
Anyway, I've never said to use a button, I said "swiping is a terrible gesture"
My parents have enormous issues swiping to answer phone calls. So they answer by accident to a lot more calls than they did when the phone had buttons, because they answer while trying to hung up. It's not clear at all that they could not do anything and the call will automatically end after a while. It's not clear at all that they could silence that phone call, without silencing all phone calls.
It's even worse than that: most of the times they call me back because they could not swipe "the right way" and were unable to answer.
But they are not stupid, they've gone through life pretty well, they worked with precision instruments in health care, where people lives were at stake, it's the interface design that is stupid!
There was a time when things were designed to be used by people leveraging human natural abilities, not forced onto people because they look cool in ADS.
> Yes, my leg, through my pocket fabric, can push buttons on
Don't keep your phone in you front pocket then!
Anyway, I don't know how big you are, but the pockets of my jeans can't handle more than half a smartphone.
And previous generations of phone never activated on their own while in my pockets (yes, they could fit, because they were sized to be handhelds not small tablets)
But, more importantly, you're not considering more ergonomic gestures than swiping, like a long press.
You are assuming that your habits are the best possible implementation.
EDIT: there's also this: swiping can reveal physical characteristics of the user which could be considered not exactly a good thing, in this era of data harvesting and targetization.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S107158191...
It’s not really a matter of personal size so the unsubtle body-shaming “I don’t know how big you are, but” is an irrelevant ad-hominem here, which weakens your comment. There’s no need to bring yourself so low in an internet conversation about buttons and sliders.
I'm not a native English speaker, sorry, big for me means big as per dictionary definition, not large or fat or "you should be ashamed of your body".
Anyway, a search for "jeans pockets smartphone" produces the following results, which is exactly what I meant, pants here have the same pocket size you can see in the following pictures.
https://previews.123rf.com/images/bacho12345/bacho123451508/...
https://previews.123rf.com/images/wisawa222/wisawa2221707/wi...
https://previews.123rf.com/images/aquapictures/aquapictures1...
https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_144...
I think looser pants are why ginormous phones fit, although I am sure upthread's comment about many pants being tailored differently now, is probably true too.
My own usage case is, as with anyone, unique. The real problem is, singular thought in design.
Look at chrome, and how google removed pinch zoom and reflow, to "force" websites to update for mobile.
Thanks google, clearly you could care less about older eyes. About older websites.
Stop mentally enslaving yourself.
ehehe I have grey hair and grey beard too.
I still wear jeans when nobody watches, but in all honesty when I wear classic suit pants to go to the office, the pockets are even smaller than the jeans ones, so my phone stays in the pocket of my (suit) jacket.
My issue with swiping is that when phones fitted entirely in one hand, for example the Samsung Galaxy SII or the iPhone 4, swiping made sense, everything was close enough and you never lost grip.
Now that they are so big, there's a lot of lateral movement to cover and it's becoming to be nonsensical. I usually drop my phone 2/3 times a day because of needing to swipe, it never happened so often before. I have also started to suffer from joint pain on my right thumb due to phone gestures.
I've watched my parents trying to do it with both hands - with one hand they keep the phone, with the other hand they try to swipe-up to answer using their index finger - and the movement 90% of the time falls too short and the swipe fails.
It's painful to watch, I think we should rethink gestures or phones' dimensions.
For kids, a kid sized phone would seemingly work better. 1/3 the size, weight, and theoretically with a smaller font and display.
Thankfully most people have four backup fingers on the same hand..
try to do what you do every day without using a thumb and tell me how good it is to have 4 "backup" fingers.
I hope this isn't true and you've merely lost track of the context of this discussion.
On a smartphone it's hard to keep track of a long thread if I have a broken thumb.
Good.
Now watch these images and tell me how these people are holding the devices in their hands (hint: watch their thumbs).
Unfortunately for you, you're still a primate with opposable thumbs.
https://static.vecteezy.com/system/resources/previews/002/88...
https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/03/31/88/03/360_F_331880337_DmRJT2I...
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/FXTP62/holding-generic-smart-phone...
> If your thumb was injured and you needed emergency assistance, would you really give up instead of trying to use your index finger?
it's obvious you never saw an emergency situation or never lived one.
You still think it's a matter of will.
People give up and die, of course, that's the problem!
Meanwhile a better gesture would be long press the screen with the palm if you need help.
Bad ergonomics is bad, regardless of how much people love feeling cool with their touch screens, it won't last.
In 10 years people playing with pocket sized touch screens will look like this photo.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/TECH/mobile/07/09/cooper.c...
Cars are already removing them because they are a distraction and don't work!
Mazda to remove touch screens from all new cars - June 2021
Top Stellantis Designer Wants to Remove All Touch Screens - June 2022
Shocker! Test Shows Physical Buttons Are Less Time-Consuming in Cars Than Touchscreens - Aug 2022
Are Car Touch Screens Getting Out of Control? - Feb 2023
You know ironically what the real reasoning behind it also is?
Touch screens are cheap, why should I buy a luxury car to watch a black piece of glass in my car when it's turned off? It doesn't feel luxury, it feels identical to the cheap car of everybody else, it looks identical to induction burners. And why is the manufacturer saving on costs if the car costed me a premium price, because it's nominally a top brand?
Would you buy a Prada bag made of cheap plastic in China?
Nobody rolls over and dies because of a broken finger. People regularly walk around with broken limbs after accidents, oblivious to their injuries because adrenaline has that effect to keep people alive. But you're here arguing that a broken thumb will render you unable or unwilling to call for help? As if you don't have two hands. As if you don't have 9 other fingers. As if you couldn't use your broken thumb to lightly touch a touchscreen if your life depended on it. Give me a break dude! If you die because of a broken thumb, your will to live must be completely nonexistent and you should go talk to a therapist because there is a real risk that you might starve to death after neglecting to eat out of apathy.
> wall of text of other irrelevant bullshit
What even was your point in posting that? I don't like touchscreens in cars either but that has nothing to do with this conversation and you know it. Stop bullshitting.