UX of the bubble itself

Issue #15 closed
Mike R created an issue

Unfortunately the ‘bubble' does not feel nearly as natural as the other (seemingly deprecated) app of the same name in the app store. I’m sure there are open source libraries that would help here but I'll specify where the UX can be improved:

  • lack of an 'x' area / dustbin where users can drag to remove a timer (see other timer app, Facebook chat heads)
  • lack of 'flingability' – sounds silly but it's useful for easily removing the bubble away from where it is impeding touch / blocking text. (See both apps)
  • lack of 'magnetism' – goes hand in hand with flinging. With magnetism, the bubble want to adhere to the edges of the device and also to pull in flings intended for the dustbin (see both apps). It also, optionally, allows for part of the bubble to hide under the edge so as to take up less space on devices with small displays. It's always important to think about said devices but I think this is possibly a bad idea since the perimeter of the circle is an important visual indicator.
  • inability to reset timer. This is an important one. I think the other timer app had a good system: one tap pauses/unpauses, long hold resets.
  • Inability to change timer length. As an example, you set a timer for 30min, but when it goes off you find you need an additional 10 minutes. Rather than resort to opening the app to create a new timer, it would be ideal if the existing bubble could be adjusted. Proposed method: while long-pressing on the bubble, slide up to lengthen the timer duration and slide down to decrease the duration (duration could increase/decrease by 5 min for each second held, akin to the timer on an oven)
  • pausing causes the time remaining to be hidden (poor UX)
  • bubble disappears once timer ends. On its face this makes sense but, in practice, a set timer is often used successively making things a bit frustrating.
  • lack of a visual indicator for timer ending. Ideally, the bubble would have a visual indicator to catch the users eye in the event, for example, audio is being sent to earbuds/headset the user is not currently using. (Could be done, for example, by setting opacity to full, flashing between normal stroke width and super sized, alternating between the BG and outline colors, etc)
  • timer goes off for a few seconds and auto-dismisses instead of needing user-dismissal. This is not specific to bubble UX and has more to do with what the user is using a given timer for. In my case, I often use them as a micro-alarm where something needs to happen when the timer goes off and I value the alert being persistent in the style of an alarm or a timer on, say, a voice assistant app. (See other timer app)
  • ability to have the border represent time counting down vs counting up. This might seem like semantic sillyness because, honestly, it is. But, that said, I think some may prefer having the ‘border bar' wind down from being 100% filled to 0% vs having it fill up from 0% to 100%. Personally, I prefer it the way it currently is (growing in length) but I thought I'd note it 🙂

Comments (4)

  1. Devin Rodriguez

    There’s a lot to unpack here so I’ll be breaking this up into multiple issues and closing this like your other one. Which other app are you referring to? There are a couple others, neither of which are mine,

    Items 1-3, regarding the behavior of dragging the bubble are now encapsulated in issue #23.

    Items 4, 7, and 9, regarding resetting the timer and the view going away have been covered (mostly) by #3. I’ve also opened issue #24 to discuss the idea of long pressing to reset the timer and included item 5 in this as well.

    Item 8, regarding the visual indicator, has been turned into issue #25.

    Item 10 has been added to #4 as an additional idea for ways to customize the UI.

  2. Devin Rodriguez

    Okay cool. I’ll give the app a try and see how it feels and works and see what I can apply here as well.

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