The Independent tries to hijack their reader's swipe meant to leave the site to send them further into it instead
The Independent tries to hijack their reader's swipe meant to leave the site to send them further into it instead
35 comments
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Something similar happens with apps that put ad banners on the bottom of the screen and make the app full screen. You try to swipe up to see the navigation bar and most of the time end up tapping the ad.
It's a shitty and deceptive pattern and for some reason Android still sends your gestures to the app when using the system UI.
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That seems to indicate the proper swiping to go to the next article (right to left). Swiping left to right would close the article is the expected behavior for me.
What I hate is sites like AP News where if you swipe left to right to leave the site you instead go back a page and land on their carousel and have to hit back again. Fuck dark patterns.
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The swiping motion that you are describing starts from the center of the screen outwards. I have no problems with that as you have said, it is standard behaviour across most platforms and doesn't conflict with other gestures.
The problem is that the site is using a swiping from the edge of the screen inwards instead. In most gestures-enabled Android devices this is a powerful gesture that has the same functionality as using the "back" button and its utility and functionality extends well beyond web browsers. It is incompetent design at best to try to make that gesture do something else on your website.
More importantly, I was visiting this page from a Lemmy link and the only way to get out and back to Lemmy when you have gesture enabled (short of force quitting the app entirely and reopening it) is to use that gesture. That website tries to hijack that feature to make you see more ads on their site.
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I'm not trying to be dismissive of an obviously shitty practice but do people not understand how a back button works?
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The swipe in is a system input for back action. It works on every app and between apps, and it works anywhere on the right side of the screen, instead of having to reach wherever your app back button is, if it's not collapsed and has to be scrolled in to view as well.
If you look at the screenshot, it doesn't even have a back button. Only a close button. Whether they navigated or not is not clear, but likely won't change the header controls in this view.
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Seems more like a genuine feature to me.
I don't know how many requests I've seen for Lemmy apps to be able to swipe between posts in the feed.
Seems that's basically what they're doing here.
But also, gesture navigation is terrible, I hate it, and always turn on 3-button navigation when I get a new phone anyway.
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It's a personal preference. Ever since I tried gesture I never went back to buttons. I don't even need to adjust my hand position to get out of a page and it's never been a problem until that site has put a different function exactly where my thumb was going to swipe.
Also, such a function you are suggesting would use a different gesture. You would have to swipe from the center-ish of the screen outwards instead of the other way around.
Apple's gestures though, I can't stand.
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35 comments
I don’t use smart phones a lot, so feel free to disregard my opinion. But to me, swiping to the left means “next”, like turning a page in a book. If you wanted to leave the site, you’d go ‘back’ to where you came from, which means swiping from left to right to me.
On many Android phones swiping from the outside edge of the screen inwards either from the left or right edge, it behaves like you tapped the "back" button. It is extremely useful to get out of for example an article that was opened on Lemmy or simply navigating through menus on your phone.
A swipe either left or right from the middle-ish of the screen is what you would expect to take you from the previous or next article. Not from the edge.
My android doesn't seem to do that. I just use the back button.
That’s pretty much the standard.
Assuming OP has standard gestures enabled, they could still swipe from the left side.
Right-handed android user. I shan't be reaching across my screen with my right thumb to use my gestures "correctly".
I shouldn't have to adjust my grip on my phone to change the way I swipe to exit the website because that website decided to replace a commonly used functionality to make it different for their website alone. I kid you not I almost didn't see that button because my thumb was naturally placed in front of it.
There is already a way to make a gesture that navigates "previous" or "next" by swiping left or right. It is by swiping from the center of the screen outwards and it is how that website should have made that gesture work if they didn't want to interfere with Android navigation gesture users.