As a writer, I have gotten semi-used to typing on mobile, probably more so than the average person. Back in high school and college if I was on my phone I was almost certainly writing. I have...
Exemplary
As a writer, I have gotten semi-used to typing on mobile, probably more so than the average person. Back in high school and college if I was on my phone I was almost certainly writing. I have multiple Google docs I've only ever opened on my phone with easily 10k+ words each. I am the weirdo so obsessed with writing that I might actually have a measurable typing speed on a graphing calculator.
As such, I feel qualified to say: text editing on mobile is awful.
I'm typing this on my phone right now, and there are CONSTANT typos that I depend on autocorrect to fix. I also have to manually correct incorrect replacements, most commonly "its" and "it's". Not to mention certain typos it seems to add to the dictionary. It feels like every day, it initially "corrects" more and more actual words to absolute gibberish.
Selecting text is a nightmare. Along with the issues described, if you need to select large swathes of text that extend beyond the bottom of the page, dragging the handle can make it scroll wildly. It doesn't help that selecting text will make the keyboard pop up instantly, cutting your screen in half and thus adding to the issue. Then sometimes it will just... Automatically drag the other end. The number of times I've copied text from an article or post, and find the top cursor had apparently gone to the top of the page. Correcting that is always a pain.
That brings me to the pop-up menus. Sometimes when it pops up after selecting text, it will be anchored in a weird part of the screen. I can't count how many times it hasn't seemed to appear until I scroll down or up, and find it by where I'd started selecting text. There have also been times where it won't seem to copy text properly. I've had a couple recent incidences where I copied a url or string of text, switched to another window to paste, and it pasted the last thing I'd copied, or maybe didn't even show a paste option. Even after trying again, paying close attention to make sure I hit copy, the problem persisted.
And here's probably my biggest gripe about text editing on mobile: it wasn't nearly as annoying when I had a phone with a physical keyboard. It's so much easier to type with physical keys. Half my frustrations come not from editing and revising, but correcting what I'm typing at that very moment. I don't think I noticed how bad the overall UI is because of my frustrations with just struggling to hit the correct keys while typing. And I feel it's also worth noting that I'm a woman and have relatively dainty hands. I fear for how bad it is for people with thicker fingers.
One more issue that isn't mentioned: the lack of keyboard shortcuts means only certain apps will have an undo/redo feature, and it would be exclusively in the app's UI. I tend to obsessively copy text I write on browsers in mobile because it can vanish if I switch tabs or the browser suddenly closes, and I've accidentally hit "paste" so many damn times and covered up the text. Heck, sometimes I do it just because the pop-up menu appears while editing and I accidentally hit paste. Mobile browsers don't have an undo/redo button. Meanwhile, I have an app called Writer+ on my phone, and it has an easy undo button at the top. However, the redo button needs an extra tap to open a menu which has "Redo" in text instead of a button.
Text editing on mobile absolutely needs an overhaul. I think it's slipped past most people's attention since all these gripes on their own are so minor. Seeing the issues listed all in one place makes me realize how bad it truly is.
Selecting text in particular is one thing that's frustrated me to no end for years when trying to write things on mobile. I frequently end up trying to pin the tail on the donkey 2-3 times before...
Selecting text in particular is one thing that's frustrated me to no end for years when trying to write things on mobile. I frequently end up trying to pin the tail on the donkey 2-3 times before accepting that I'm going to have to also backspace a couple extra letters and retype them.
I really wish we could get a phone with a keyboard back as well. A modernized version of the OG Droid with the slide keyboard would be a godsend - I LOVED that thing, it was just too slow to keep using.
If you use Google keyboard (and probably others) then a long press on spacebar turns it into a mini left/right joystick for your cursor, enabling fine grained positioning between those pesky...
If you use Google keyboard (and probably others) then a long press on spacebar turns it into a mini left/right joystick for your cursor, enabling fine grained positioning between those pesky llIIllIIl letters. Doesn't help with text selection, sadly, but it makes me wonder if there are other keyboards who are better at it.
I have developed a disability with my hands that prevents me from typing on a physical keyboard anymore. As such, I have been confined to either mobile keyboards or, more often, dictation. I am,...
I have developed a disability with my hands that prevents me from typing on a physical keyboard anymore. As such, I have been confined to either mobile keyboards or, more often, dictation. I am, in fact, dictating this on my phone using Gboard and Google's voice recognition right now.
It helps a lot, but I feel all of your frustrations. Selecting text in particular is an absolute nightmare.
I got a good deal on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and its stylus is mostly useless to me for the same reason physical keyboards are now useless to me. But every once in awhile it comes in handy to use the stylus as a pseudo-mouse in order to precisely select certain text with "smart select." It's absurd that you even need such a thing, but there we are.
The text editing "mode" in Gboard is also rather handy. Having arrow-keys is often a god send.
The extra frustrating thing about the undo/redo thing on Android (and presumably iOS) is that, if you Connect a Bluetooth keyboard, you will find that the normal Windows keyboard shortcuts still work. CTRL+Z and CTRL+Y work as undo and redo in a surprisingly large number of cases on Android. So the operating system supports it... The option just often isn't there.
I hate typing longer form texts on mobile as well, I wonder if a small wireless keyboard would do the trick. It will look absolutely fucking stupid when I whip that out from my jacket's inner...
I hate typing longer form texts on mobile as well, I wonder if a small wireless keyboard would do the trick. It will look absolutely fucking stupid when I whip that out from my jacket's inner pocket in the middle of walking my dog but who cares.
For me it's mostly typing my thoughts out and not really editing, so it's not really a problem for me.
So far, the best solution I can think of is a phone cover with a slide-out Bluetooth keyboard. Alas, those don't exist (that I can find anyway), and so far tentative searches for phone-sized...
So far, the best solution I can think of is a phone cover with a slide-out Bluetooth keyboard. Alas, those don't exist (that I can find anyway), and so far tentative searches for phone-sized keyboards to try my hand at a DIY version turn up nothing.
It is always refreshing to see someone else created a long post that spells out something that has frustrated you for years. For that alone it was a wonderful read. What I don't understand about...
It is always refreshing to see someone else created a long post that spells out something that has frustrated you for years. For that alone it was a wonderful read.
What I don't understand about mobile UI designers is that the UI is so clearly broken and so clearly derived from desktop editing, but that they insist you can only use their worthless imitation of a mouse to target the cursor. What do you do when you are at a desktop computer and for some reason don't want out to reach for the mouse? You use the arrow keys!
Why is there no standard way to bring up some arrow keys in a mobile keyboard? It's infuriating. It is possible to chuck in hundreds of emoji, but not four little buttons with an arrow on the label. And while you're at it, maybe also add some modifiers like Control and Alt, but those four would already make a world of difference.
I totally get that it is not a good solution to the problem and that new, more efficient paradigms should be developed. But while we waiting for that, please make a shitty transplant of the complete desktop mechanics. Not only from some random part of it.
For what it's worth, if you're on Android, using Gboard (Google's keyboard), there is a text editing feature that adds in arrow keys, Home and End, Select, and Copy/Paste keys. Just click the four...
For what it's worth, if you're on Android, using Gboard (Google's keyboard), there is a text editing feature that adds in arrow keys, Home and End, Select, and Copy/Paste keys.
Just click the four square button on the top left (next to the predictive buttons. Then click "Text Editing."
I find that’s only useful if you want to move the cursor to somewhere that’s a) already on screen, and b) only left or right or above where it currently is. Good luck if you’re trying to scroll...
I find that’s only useful if you want to move the cursor to somewhere that’s a) already on screen, and b) only left or right or above where it currently is.
Good luck if you’re trying to scroll through a URL that’s got a hundred extra bits for tracking (that I want to carefully select and remove, so that I’m left with the base URL of the page itself) or want to select text that’s two or three rows below the cursor.
If there’s one thing I’m frustrated at with losing 3D Touch, it’s that.
Gboard's text editing mode that u/DarthRedLeader mentioned is invaluable for precisely this use case. Every time I share a URL for someone, I have to trim off all of the crap after the question mark.
Gboard's text editing mode that u/DarthRedLeader mentioned is invaluable for precisely this use case.
Every time I share a URL for someone, I have to trim off all of the crap after the question mark.
The most frustrating part of typing on mobile to me is that, at least in my eyes, there was at least a partial solution to that. When I originally got my iPhone 7, the "3D Touch" was such a...
Why is there no standard way to bring up some arrow keys in a mobile keyboard? It's infuriating. It is possible to chuck in hundreds of emoji, but not four little buttons with an label on the label.
The most frustrating part of typing on mobile to me is that, at least in my eyes, there was at least a partial solution to that.
When I originally got my iPhone 7, the "3D Touch" was such a massive improvement to my typing. The fact that I could accurately move the cursor around by hard pressing on the keyboard and just dragging in the direction I wanted was completely game changing. It went from something I hated to something I actually didn't mind.
But then that all changed with the iPhone 11. When they released it and the iOS update accompanying it, as the new iPhone 11 didn't have the 3D touch due to them phasing it out, it unified long presses and hard presses to the same action. I can still hard press on the keyboard to drag my cursor around, but for whatever reason the accuracy is vastly lower now. Half the time it doesn't even seem to work. Definitely doesn't work if you're dragging inside of bar with text longer than what shows on the screen, such as a URL. You used to be able to scroll with it, but not anymore. Now it's hardly different than long pressing on the space bar and dragging, which I do sometimes because the hard press refuses to work.
Sure, the fact that it still partially works means typing on my phone is tolerable, but why should we settle for tolerable when we had a solution that actually made it reasonable? I've been genuinely upset with Apple ever since I updated updated my phone. It was such an incredible feature, and I'm so sad to see it gone on newer phones. The phone is I truly dread the day I need to upgrade my phone; though the feature is a shadow of its former self, it's still something.
I've never had trouble with moving the cursor by holding the spacebar since the 11. Note that it's not a hard press anymore, just a hold. I can still scroll through long strings either vertically...
I've never had trouble with moving the cursor by holding the spacebar since the 11. Note that it's not a hard press anymore, just a hold. I can still scroll through long strings either vertically or horizontally, and can quickly get to the beginning/end/top/bottom with a quick swipe in that direction.
It's still a pain to type longer responses on mobile though. In the few cases when I need to type out something longer on my phone, I'll hook up a bluetooth keyboard to it.
That's surprising to me that you don't have any issues scrolling. I do use the space bar to move the cursor sometimes when the hard pressing refuses to function, but it always feels less...
That's surprising to me that you don't have any issues scrolling. I do use the space bar to move the cursor sometimes when the hard pressing refuses to function, but it always feels less functional than the already weakened 3D Touch. Scrolling up is slower and I can scroll at most only two lines down. With scrolling through a URL or something, sometimes it refuses to scroll past the edge, regardless of if I'm using the 3D Touch or long pressing the space bar; I'll often just scroll over to the edge then just input a couple characters to force it to scroll.
I wonder if it has to do with the screen size or shape itself. It's certainly something I could believe; when it senses your finger on the bezel rather than on the screen it knows you're at the edge while they never bothered to set that up for the older phones, perhaps?
At the very least, your comment made me dread a new phone a tiny bit less. Maybe I'll see if someone will let me mess around in a notepad on their newer phone.
Honestly, arrow keys would be amazing. The closest we have right now is the mouse cursor on the virtual keyboard, but those are dependent on the keyboard and not a feature of the phone. Add in a...
Honestly, arrow keys would be amazing. The closest we have right now is the mouse cursor on the virtual keyboard, but those are dependent on the keyboard and not a feature of the phone. Add in a physical shift button to select text and switch to caps on the virtual keyboard, and some button to bring up the pop-up menus, and the experience would be massively improved. Not perfect, but much better than what we have now.
When using the default Google keyboard on Android you can swipe the space button left and right to move the cursor. Far from perfect but better than nothing.
When using the default Google keyboard on Android you can swipe the space button left and right to move the cursor. Far from perfect but better than nothing.
I'd be down for a standard hardware key on phones dedicated as a modifier, round about where your left thumb sits (or maybe one on each side for left hand typers). The real-estate it takes up...
I'd be down for a standard hardware key on phones dedicated as a modifier, round about where your left thumb sits (or maybe one on each side for left hand typers).
The real-estate it takes up would be more than made up for by the functionality it unlocks. Texting is central to mobile use, so the form of the device should be geared towards that.
To me the most frustrating part is that holding down the backspace deletes text at a speed that increases exponentially the longer I hold it down. So where I might have only meant to delete maybe...
To me the most frustrating part is that holding down the backspace deletes text at a speed that increases exponentially the longer I hold it down. So where I might have only meant to delete maybe a dozen words, I often end up holding the backspace down just a split second longer than I was supposed to and end up deleting entire paragraphs. It's especially annoying in text inputs where I can't easily select the entire portion I want to delete-- for example, in the URL bar in mobile browsers. (I use iOS and I'm not sure if this issue is exclusive to iOS.) So I usually just tap the backspace and delete things one letter at a time instead of holding it down... it takes way longer this way but it's less annoying than the feeling of losing control over how much text I delete.
I have been using the Typewise offline keyboard for a few years. I mainly switched to it for privacy (I was using gboard before). But it has several features that I think address some of these...
I have been using the Typewise offline keyboard for a few years. I mainly switched to it for privacy (I was using gboard before). But it has several features that I think address some of these issues.
First, you delete with a backwards slide gesture anywhere on the keyboard - long press and then slide left, keep sliding until you have deleted what you want. If you go too far, slide back to the right to undelete.
Second, if you do the slide gesture on the space bar, you can use it to move the cursor. I don't use it as much as the delete feature, but its handy for the "eat the tap" problem described in the article when the cursor is almost where you want it.
Third, capitalization is a swipe up from the key, so it's not two taps to get a capitalized letter.
Similarly, quick access to basic punctuation is provided by two keys on either space bar. Tap for period, swipe up for comma, and question and exclamation on the other side, plus long press pops up a customizable menu of other frequently used punctuation.
It has a hexagonal key layout that is supposed to be faster and more accurate to use, but I have never gotten to trying it.
It is not perfect by any means. The full symbol list is probably my least favorite part as it presents a scrollable screen instead of overloading the keyboard keys. It also has no paste gesture, so sometimes when I need to precisely paste, I will switch to gboard for paste and then back after. But the other features outweigh these issues.
It's also $25 for a lifetime license, but I have found that worth it given how much typing I do on mobile.
I've subscribed and I'm using it right now! Thank you so much for the recommendation, I'm really loving the swipe left to delete and swipe right to undo, this is waaaaay better than the chaotic...
I've subscribed and I'm using it right now! Thank you so much for the recommendation, I'm really loving the swipe left to delete and swipe right to undo, this is waaaaay better than the chaotic default backspace. Also loving the multiple undo functionality and the painless autocorrect undo— autocorrect is now no longer such a menace and I really disliked the "shake phone to undo" method 😂
I also really appreciate the option for a lifetime license! I just got an annual subscription for now but will review after the first year, I might want to get a lifetime license then.
I think my only complaint so far is that it's tricky getting to emojis using the swipe-up key for it, but other than that it addresses so many of my complaints typing on mobile 😊
Yeah! And in case this helps anyone else trying out the app-- I was having trouble with the swipe-up action, until I realized that my mistake was that I was swiping up and letting my fingertip...
Yeah! And in case this helps anyone else trying out the app-- I was having trouble with the swipe-up action, until I realized that my mistake was that I was swiping up and letting my fingertip linger on the screen before lifting it up.
After some trial-and-error I learned that the swipe-up motion is supposed to be more like, pretending you're trying to flick a speck of dust off the screen 😊 Have had no issues since!
An interesting quote from the article: I wonder how much the quality of online discourse (and our brain development) as a whole is affected by poor mobile typing interfaces. Imagine if every...
An interesting quote from the article:
But keep in mind that most text created on mobile is short and low effort, usually messages and social media comments.
I wonder how much the quality of online discourse (and our brain development) as a whole is affected by poor mobile typing interfaces.
Imagine if every message had to be painstakingly carved into a stone tablet, and editing required chipping away at your work. Wouldn't you keep your messages as short as possible? Wouldn't you be more inclined to leave errors in rather than correct them? Would your frustration at the process affect the emotional tone of your wording? Would you even bother to make a thoughtful, well-organised post if you weren't seriously invested?
Imagine if the majority of the people in your community communicated that way most of the time. Would that affect your perception of 'normal' language and communication?
Scott Jenson (tap/click to read more...) Yes, text editing really is a problem Text editing is a hack Start with desktop text editing… …and then poorly copy it The 4 changes mobile made to text...
Scott Jenson
Whenever I explain my research at Google into mobile text editing, I’m usually met with blank stares or a slightly hostile “Everyone can edit text on their phones, right? What’s the problem?”
Text editing on mobile isn’t ok. It’s actually much worse than you think, an invisible problem no one appreciates.
(tap/click to read more...)
Yes, text editing really is a problem
In 2017, while working on Android, I had some questions about text editing and started asking around for existing user studies. I assumed that for something so core to the user experience, we would have at least a few studies. Looking back over seven years of research, I couldn’t find a single one on text editing. I was a bit stunned.
Text editing on mobile was considered “good enough.” Since people weren’t complaining, there was little motivation to improve it. However, I decided to conduct my own study, and the results were surprising. I gave 10 participants a simple set of text editing tasks, such as deleting an “x” from a string of characters or moving a word to the end of a sentence. Every single person had problems with targeting, using the clipboard and lots and lots of errors.
I asked the participants about their overall experience editing text on mobile devices. They all expressed frustration, but not so much with messaging or social media apps, where they typically only needed to write short bursts of text. However, when it came to composing more complex text, such as multiple-sentence emails, they often said things like, “I’ll start it on my phone, but if it gets too complex, I’ll just finish it on my laptop.” Even more surprising, over half of the participants said that instead of editing text, it was easier to just select all, delete, and retype, bypassing editing entirely. This is not a sign that things are working well.
Just to be clear, the problem here isn’t entering text, but with editing it. With better keyboards, voice transcription, and physical keyboards on many tablets, getting text into a device is not the problem it used to be. However, you will always want to edit your words afterwards.
While my research focused on fixing text editing problems on Android, I want to be clear that iOS, which has some significant differences to Android text editing, still has many of the same problems.
Text editing is a hack
Mobile devices were originally designed for consumption. The revolution of flick-scrolling made it easy to move through content. The superpower of mobiles was their on-the-go consumption of videos, photos, social media, and messaging. These are valuable tasks but require little text editing. People forget the original iPhone didn’t even have clipboard support!
Yet over the last 10 years we’ve heard over and over that it’s only a matter of time before everyone will be using tablets for everything. Apple ran an add a few years ago “What’s a computer?” and in 2013, Google tried a “Tablet Tuesdays” campaign to get it’s workers to use their tablets all day while at work. Tablets continue to sell fairly well but as a desktop replacement, it’s been, let’s just say, less than a resounding success.
There are likely many reasons, but I would argue that there are a few deep foundational UX problems with tablets that hinders productively. Text editing is one. Another is file handling, something I’ve previous written about if you’re interested. However, before anyone accuses me of being a nostalgic fool, I want to be clear that I am not anti-mobile. How can we actually use our fix our phones and tablets to be as productive and fast as we are on desktop systems?
Start with desktop text editing…
Every desktop OS has a mouse cursor that can be moved accurately with a mouse or trackpad, making it easy to click on the exact character you want.
Selecting text is also quite simple: after clicking down on the mouse, an additional drag of the cursor selects more. Then an EDIT menu with the classic Cut/Copy/Paste commands let you act on your selection. For must faster actions, the command keys X, C, and V made it significantly faster.
The combination of these three features—an accurate pointer, simple selection, and a menu with command keys—made text editing easy, relatively error-free, and unambiguous.
…and then poorly copy it
Given how prevalent desktop UI was when mobile was launched, it’s not surprising that it tried to copy desktop editing. The problem is that there was no mouse pointer and a menu bar with command keys. This meant it had to make significant compromises.
For example, instead of clicking with a mouse pointer, mobile devices use a finger to tap. This means that placing the text cursor is less accurate. This is well known in UX research as the ‘fat finger‘ problem. This is why user interface guidelines suggest buttons to be fairly tall and wide as bigger targets are easier to hit. However, text characters can’t be made big enough. This usually results in placing the text cursor a bit to the left or right of where you intended.
The targeting problem has led to a cascade of new interaction mechanisms that technically solve the problem but have unfortunate side effects.
The 4 changes mobile made to text editing
1. Text Handles
Mobile adds a teardrop handle to the bottom of the text cursor. This allows the text cursor to be seen more easily and gives a handle to drag the cursor to the correct position if you miss. This all seems pretty reasonable right?
Actually, no! This creates our first ambiguity. The text handle is itself a tap target. Unfortunately, so is the text surrounding it. We now have two potential tap targets. When they are far apart, it’s fine. The problem only occurs when I want to tap just to the left or right of the text cursor. In this case, it’s unclear what the user wants: to move the cursor or to tap/drag the handle.
We saw this in our user testing when users tried to place the text cursor accurately: they would miss by a few characters and tap again to the side but the text handle would take priority and ‘eat the tap’ incorrectly assuming that the user wanted to drag it. On the desktop, if you clicked in the wrong location, you’d just click again to move the cursor, there was no ambiguity. While this isn’t disastrous, it adds friction. Worse, it’s the start of a trend. As we get to the other changes below, this input ambiguity will grow worse.
iOS doesn’t have a teardrop handle but it’s text cursor still has the same ‘eat the tap’ problem.
2. Magnifier
Because the text on mobile devices is so small and the finger is so relatively big, mobile devices added a magnifying glass.
There are two issues with the magnifier. First, it doesn’t help you very much before you tap to place the cursor, it’s more there to help you correct your mistake. It does this by making it easier to see where you are dragging. Second, It’s visually confusing. By floating above your finger, it creates two visible cursors: the real one under your finger and a duplicate in the magnifier. It’s actually not that bad with very short text fields, but with longer emails, it’s easy to get lost and not be sure where you are in the text.
Apple’s magnifier is even more chaotic, vanishing in iOS13 and returning in iOS15.
3. Selecting text
On desktop, selecting text was a natural extension of mouse clicking by keeping the button down and dragging. With mobile this isn’t possible so there is a completely new gesture, double tap. Wait, there is actually a third gesture long press, which also works. Both do the same thing. Don’t look at me, I didn’t design this….
However this new gesture causes more friction as decoding a ‘double tap’ must wait a bit to see if another tap is coming, so this usually delays the effect of a single tap. This means the text handle has another way to ‘eat a tap’.
However selection is still not done as you often want to select more than a single word. To solve this problem, the text cursor handle is at both ends of the selection. This allows you to extend your selection by dragging it at either end. This means selecting a few words is actually a two step process: select a word and then drag the selection handles. This compound set of gestures to edit text, like placing the cursor described above isn’t horrible, but it isn’t nearly as elegant as desktop and definitely adds yet more friction.
4. Popup menu
As there is no menu bar with mobile, there needs to be some way to invoke the clipboard commands. This is done in two ways. The first is the most obvious: as soon as there is a text selection, show a menu above the selection. This is visually a bit busy but it doesn’t create any tapping ambiguity. This works fairly well for cut/copy but is more problematic for pasting, which usually doesn’t start with a selection. The solution is a bit hidden: you can bring up this same menu by tapping the text handle. This means users have to learn TWO different gestures to bring up the menu. iOS is nearly the same.
This problem is made even worse on Android as the text handle actually disappears after 4 seconds of inactivity. The reason for this is that the handle slightly obscures text beneath it. This makes the menu completely unavailable. If you want to bring up the menu, you have to tap again to make the handle appear and then tap the handle a second time. It’s no wonder people are confused.
This menu-on-handle-tap adds yet another targeting ambiguity. A common problem with trying to place the cursor is that the user accidentally taps the handle which brings up the menu.
For highly proficient users, this gets even worse as their is no command key equivalents for cut, copy, or paste. Whether you are a beginner or expert, you must use the menu in the exact same way. Imagine if on the desktop, everyone had to use the Edit menu to cut and paste text. This is just lazy design. While we should always take care of novice users first, we shouldn’t ignore proficient users. Part of the unspoken reason desktop clipboard use is so high is the speed in which it can be used. Mobile has none of this.
How a tap can be misinterpreted
These extra mobile hacks that shoehorn desktop text editing into the mobile experience are functional, they get the job done, but each one adds another way a tap can be misinterpreted. Each time the user taps one of these actions can occur:
place the cursor
bring up the menu (if there already is a cursor)
start a drag
start a double tap
start a long press
If you are very deliberate, these separate actions can be managed. This isn’t a complete train wreck. My point however is that it is fragile. There are just so many ways the user can end up surprised.
Here are some of the errors I saw in my user testing:
When a user taps, due to the fat finger problem, they miss the location they wanted.
If they tap slightly to the side to place the cursor correctly, they tap the text handle and the menu comes up, confusing them. They are forced to tap away to dismiss the menu and try again.
Instead of getting the menu, their second tap is interpreted as a trivial drag and nothing happens.
If the user attempts a double tap, but taps a bit to the side, or hits the text handle, the OS misunderstands and nothing happens.
The user wants to paste into an empty field and is confused as there is no text cursor and no menu. They must first tap into the empty field to get the cursor and THEN tap the cursor a second time to get the menu.
The user traps to place the cursor but looks up to talk for a second, During this brief pause, the text handle times out and disappears. Looking down they want to tap the handle but don’t see it and are confused. They have to tap again.
All of this friction starts to add up. Each of these changes, on their own, seem reasonable. However, taken together they add a significant amount of errors and friction to the process. In my study of 10 users, it took 5 attempts on average to place the cursor accurately. We had one user tap 19 times! It’s no longer a surprise why so many of our test users just gave up on text editing, retyping everything instead of actually editing the text.
Obviously, text editing on mobile is possible as millions do it every day. My point isn’t that “it’s impossible” but a much more subtle “it’s much harder than we think”.
Many of you will just say “get a grip grandpa, it’s not that bad” and dismiss my concerns. But keep in mind that most text created on mobile is short and low effort, usually messages and social media comments.
Editing is rarely needed so this friction doesn’t matter so much. I’ve also had many people tell me of students writing entire papers on their phone. That’s right, it’s possible! Lots of people run marathons too, that doesn’t mean everyone is able to.
If you don’t believe me, please try doing some significant text editing on either Android or iOS. Just use voice input to dictate a quick paragraph and then try to clean it up. Pay attention to how many errors happen and then honestly tell me that it was a simple and easy experience.
If we want mobile to replace desktop (or at least compete with it), it has to grow beyond these backward looking tap-hacks to something designed specifically for mobile. Instead of poorly copying the desktop, we should lean into the touch experience to create something fluid, clear, and much simpler.
No one ever complains about anything lol. That's the worst signal ever to use about UI/UX issues. The evidence for mobile editing being too difficult: how many times do people write out "sorry...
Since people weren’t complaining, there was little motivation to improve it.
No one ever complains about anything lol. That's the worst signal ever to use about UI/UX issues.
The evidence for mobile editing being too difficult: how many times do people write out "sorry about typos I'm on mobile" instead of, you know, fixing the typos? It sounds ridiculous to suggest "just fix your typos" on mobile and that's proof that this is a real problem.
throw it on some various forum dwellers. You'll have them at the house of UX designers like a witch hunt. I think that's more of a cultural issue than a UX one. the implication with typing stuff...
No one ever complains about anything lol.
throw it on some various forum dwellers. You'll have them at the house of UX designers like a witch hunt.
how many times do people write out "sorry about typos I'm on mobile" instead of, you know, fixing the typos? It sounds ridiculous to suggest "just fix your typos" on mobile and that's proof that this is a real problem.
I think that's more of a cultural issue than a UX one. the implication with typing stuff on a phone is that phone usage implies being busy and moving around quickly. If you are making a response in haste in a loud environment, no amount of auto-correction will help you.
This is fascinating and I agree with 99% of it. I find it odd that the author seemingly doesn't know you can long press in an empty field to bring to up the menu - you don't have to tap two times...
This is fascinating and I agree with 99% of it. I find it odd that the author seemingly doesn't know you can long press in an empty field to bring to up the menu - you don't have to tap two times as he says multiple times. It hardly changes his overall point, but I was surprised by this omission.
Typing and editing on mobile devices have always been bad, but let me add that I never contemplated mobile edit usability for people with disabilities until I became one of them. Swipe keyboards...
Typing and editing on mobile devices have always been bad, but let me add that I never contemplated mobile edit usability for people with disabilities until I became one of them.
Swipe keyboards on mobile are actually a bit easier to write with for me (one-finger predictive typing) than mechanical keyboards. But editing isn't easy. Positioning the handles for edits is drastically slower and less precise with stiff hands. Android 13 does have a magnifier on selection, but cut/paste/copy menus vary depending on application, sometimes hiding the "cut" option. The selection handles move erratically and I often find that I've somehow selected text that didn't appear to be in the highlighted area.
I'm very grateful for the mention above about the text editing menu on GBoard - arrow keys and Home/End ought to help. Frankly, though, I wouldn't even try to write on an iPhone keyboard if not for work e-mail, iMessage, and Slack responses - it's just terrible. Any iPhone usability hacks I'm missing?
I really wish I could have some kind of mashup of the modern slab smartphone and any kind of Blackberry. Blaclberries had trackballs!!! Text editing was such a breeze once you'd gotten used to the...
I really wish I could have some kind of mashup of the modern slab smartphone and any kind of Blackberry. Blaclberries had trackballs!!! Text editing was such a breeze once you'd gotten used to the keyboard!
I'm never going to get over RIM's many failures wrt trying to make smartphones with physical keyboards happen again. I still perk up whenever anyone tries to release a phone with a physical keyboard but so far they've all been half baked duds.
Sometimes I wonder what the smartphone landscape would look like now if RIM had held on to a significant share of the market rather than disappearing for a few years and then attempting new releases well after Apple had a stranglehold on the top end.
I only dabbled with a years old Blackberry I got off eBay but they were nice. I miss my slide out keyboard on my old Nokia C6. It was the first non flip-phone I had. It was rock solid, typed...
I only dabbled with a years old Blackberry I got off eBay but they were nice.
I miss my slide out keyboard on my old Nokia C6. It was the first non flip-phone I had. It was rock solid, typed amazingly well and I thought it looked cool as hell, lol. After it died I repurposed it into a "Pokedex" for my kids and still thought it looked cool as hell.
Although I do write posts on my phone sometimes, it does seem like the wrong tool for extensive editing. When I cut and paste from websites it can be quite annoying. I wonder how how much of an...
Although I do write posts on my phone sometimes, it does seem like the wrong tool for extensive editing. When I cut and paste from websites it can be quite annoying.
I wonder how how much of an improvement it would be to use a tablet and keyboard?
A tablet and keyboard is ok. Its been a while since I've used my iPad for typing but I think it supported copy/paste shortcuts and shift + arrows to select. The issue is on the iPad you can use...
A tablet and keyboard is ok. Its been a while since I've used my iPad for typing but I think it supported copy/paste shortcuts and shift + arrows to select.
The issue is on the iPad you can use two fingers on the on screen keyboard to make it move the cursor as if the keyboard was a trackpad. Using a physical keyboard removes the on screen keyboard so you can't using the two finger gesture anymore.
I hope we can see some changes in this, either like the article suggests or maybe something different because I hate where we're at. I used iphones for a really long time but now I have an Pixel with GrapheneOS... I don't know how other versions of android are but this is brutal. Not that iOS is perfect.
One thing that has stuck with me for a while is a complaint that Justine Haupt had (the video is taken down but she's the person thats making a rotary cell phone) she complained that there's no manual for smartphones, theres no documentation on specifically how features work, and gesture controls don't work consistently so you can't tell if you did it wrong or if the phone messed it up. As an example, how to I get that select/copy menu to pop up on my phone? It doesn't work consistently, there isn't really documentation, and I have no idea how to make it work except to keep mashing my screen! I am not becoming a tech illiterate old man, this just sucks. Get off my lawn /rant
I'm a millennial but started using smartphones relatively late in the game. Still, I'd say I'm relatively adventurous in pressing random stuff/exploring. I cant count the number of times I've been...
there's no manual for smartphones, theres no documentation on specifically how features work
I'm a millennial but started using smartphones relatively late in the game. Still, I'd say I'm relatively adventurous in pressing random stuff/exploring.
I cant count the number of times I've been frustrated with a task, only to learn months or years later that there's actually a simple function to do the thing. How do people figure this stuff out?
Bit silly of an example, but it pains me to admit that it took me an embarrassingly long time after getting my first smartphone to figure out browsers had tabs, and how to find and interact with them.
iPhones do have a manual, they are just hard to find. The tips app comes preloaded as default and it will give you the broad strokes but the last tip it gives you IIRC is a link to the manual for...
One thing that has stuck with me for a while is a complaint that Justine Haupt had (the video is taken down but she's the person thats making a rotary cell phone) she complained that there's no manual for smartphones, theres no documentation on specifically how features work, and gesture controls don't work consistently so you can't tell if you did it wrong or if the phone messed it up.
iPhones do have a manual, they are just hard to find. The tips app comes preloaded as default and it will give you the broad strokes but the last tip it gives you IIRC is a link to the manual for whatever version of iOS you are on.
Actually I just checked and it’s a little more streamlined. If you scroll down to the bottom of the tips app there is a button to tap to read the manual directly in the app.
Honestly, its refreshing to see this, and read peoples replies/experiences. I genuinely have thought that typing on mobile is just something everyone else got, and my frustration is the sign I'm...
Honestly, its refreshing to see this, and read peoples replies/experiences. I genuinely have thought that typing on mobile is just something everyone else got, and my frustration is the sign I'm becoming an out of touch old person.
I'm sure I am for other reasons, but I get so frustrated simply sending long chats on mobile. I do a lot of text editing on desktops; I can't fathom trying to edit on mobile, or even type more than, well, this really :'D
Edit - As a sidenote, anyone find Gboard got worse at predicting recently, or am I just trying to see things that aren't there? I tried switching back to Samsung keyboard, but not particularly enjoying it
They should just give up on copying desktop. Make selection at the word level only. Screw having to move a cursor around by tiny amounts. Just throw in the towel and always select whole word on a...
They should just give up on copying desktop. Make selection at the word level only. Screw having to move a cursor around by tiny amounts. Just throw in the towel and always select whole word on a single click. Always delete a whole word. This would give you faster access to the copy and paste too.
Another idea: copy vim modes! Add a button that converts the letters on the keyboard into something that quickly moves the cursor or cuts or pastes or provides selection. Maybe you get it automatically if you have a selection in the middle of your text.
Another idea: go all in on voice to text. I personally find it pretty good, and much faster than trying to deal with typing. Right now, they only dedicate a single bar to the UI when you are in voice to text mode. Instead, they could replace the entire keyboard while you're talking with more meaningful quick actions that you could use while still staying in voice to text mode. Even if it was just alternative word suggestions, it would be pretty useful I think given how often I need to replace single words because it misheard me. And maybe something for faster emoji access.
I was part of the launch team for Swype. Back when we created Swype, one of the problems we were solving was how to increase the information bandwidth to allow you to use gesture typing to think...
I was part of the launch team for Swype. Back when we created Swype, one of the problems we were solving was how to increase the information bandwidth to allow you to use gesture typing to think about text in words at a time instead of letters at a time. There was also a lot of thought we put into editing; many things which still haven't been adopted by other keyboards which copied how to enter text.
I joined that team specifically because I saw text editing to be a huge barrier for touchscreen devices. Swype had gestures for capitalization, Swyping above the keyboard to, which made it really easy to type something like McDonald. Adding quotation marks was as easy as Swyping from the quote to the spacebar or vice versa to pad where the quotes were supposed to be placed. All punctuation, like commas, periods, exclamation points, and question marks had the same exposure. The key itself was the same layout for the symbol layer, so you could train the keyboard to type out strings which were mixed letters, numbers, and symbols without switching. We had shortcuts which could launch things like a selected address, and open up the map provider, automatically searching for the address. We had an edit layer which had navigation arrows and keys for cut, copy, and paste. And the keyboard remembered the last 100 Swypes you made, so you could single tap a word which was incorrect and see 10 alternative words in a word choice window, and use a quick Swype gesture to select which was the intended word; Swype would remember that correction and prioritize it in the future.
We worked within the textedit box constraints but pushed for changes which would advance how you could enter text and edit on a device. Apple wouldn't allow 3rd party keyboards forever. Same is true of Microsoft after Windows Mobile 6.52. There's a lot which could still be improved and I'm disappointed how much has stagnated since Nuance bought Swype and disbanded the team and product. So much work still to do.
Swype was one of the first apps I ever purchased. It was absolutely mind boggling how useful it was and what all it could do. I feel like any modern keyboard app (GBoard included) are huge steps...
Swype was one of the first apps I ever purchased. It was absolutely mind boggling how useful it was and what all it could do. I feel like any modern keyboard app (GBoard included) are huge steps backwards. As you said, it learned your typing habits so the suggested autocorrects would be like 99% correct and sensical (I miss that so much today). I knew about some of the shortcuts you mentioned but am not suprised at all that there were tons more I didn't know about.
I hate writing on mobile, it's really only for me to put down story notes and brief explanations in point form, which I can edit on my PC later. As someone who hates using netspeak and likes...
I hate writing on mobile, it's really only for me to put down story notes and brief explanations in point form, which I can edit on my PC later. As someone who hates using netspeak and likes typing out words properly, it's a slog on anything other than PC or at the very least a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard if I'm stuck with mobile. There's nothing worse than holding down 'delete' to remove a sentence or just a few words and watching as everything you just wrote goes 'poof' because you held it down too long.
I read this when it was posted, thought, "Hmm, yeah, text editing on mobile does suck," and then over the next several days, discovered that every text I wrote on mobile came with this...
I read this when it was posted, thought, "Hmm, yeah, text editing on mobile does suck," and then over the next several days, discovered that every text I wrote on mobile came with this angel-on-the-shoulder awareness of "Look. Look how much it sucks. Be aware."
I knew it sucked, I was aware, I've been typing on mobiles since there were mobiles to type on, but other than some vague avoidances ("Oh, let me grab the computer so I can type this out.") I never was able to articulate to myself exactly that it does suck, and how much it sucks.
So (genuinely!) thanks for opening my eyes! Reading all these comments there are some solutions it seems, though not as many as one might hope.
One thing I can myself add: for any long form text I need to write, I use iA Writer, which has a simple bar over the keyboard with some basic editing/navigation buttons. You can see it in practice here. This alone makes it possible for me to write longer texts on mobile. I do wish they'd release it as a system-wide keyboard but I doubt that's possible.
Typing on mobile is easily the worst thing I experience on mobile and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Editing is on a whole other level of bad as the video perfectly illustrates. I wish I...
Typing on mobile is easily the worst thing I experience on mobile and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Editing is on a whole other level of bad as the video perfectly illustrates.
I appreciate the thought and work that has gone into this, but heavily lament that it's likely getting locked into the Google walled gardens and maybe even under patents instead of being shared...
I appreciate the thought and work that has gone into this, but heavily lament that it's likely getting locked into the Google walled gardens and maybe even under patents instead of being shared with the world for everybody to benefit, doubly painful as I've been slooooowly trying to extricate myself from everything Google
As a writer, I have gotten semi-used to typing on mobile, probably more so than the average person. Back in high school and college if I was on my phone I was almost certainly writing. I have multiple Google docs I've only ever opened on my phone with easily 10k+ words each. I am the weirdo so obsessed with writing that I might actually have a measurable typing speed on a graphing calculator.
As such, I feel qualified to say: text editing on mobile is awful.
I'm typing this on my phone right now, and there are CONSTANT typos that I depend on autocorrect to fix. I also have to manually correct incorrect replacements, most commonly "its" and "it's". Not to mention certain typos it seems to add to the dictionary. It feels like every day, it initially "corrects" more and more actual words to absolute gibberish.
Selecting text is a nightmare. Along with the issues described, if you need to select large swathes of text that extend beyond the bottom of the page, dragging the handle can make it scroll wildly. It doesn't help that selecting text will make the keyboard pop up instantly, cutting your screen in half and thus adding to the issue. Then sometimes it will just... Automatically drag the other end. The number of times I've copied text from an article or post, and find the top cursor had apparently gone to the top of the page. Correcting that is always a pain.
That brings me to the pop-up menus. Sometimes when it pops up after selecting text, it will be anchored in a weird part of the screen. I can't count how many times it hasn't seemed to appear until I scroll down or up, and find it by where I'd started selecting text. There have also been times where it won't seem to copy text properly. I've had a couple recent incidences where I copied a url or string of text, switched to another window to paste, and it pasted the last thing I'd copied, or maybe didn't even show a paste option. Even after trying again, paying close attention to make sure I hit copy, the problem persisted.
And here's probably my biggest gripe about text editing on mobile: it wasn't nearly as annoying when I had a phone with a physical keyboard. It's so much easier to type with physical keys. Half my frustrations come not from editing and revising, but correcting what I'm typing at that very moment. I don't think I noticed how bad the overall UI is because of my frustrations with just struggling to hit the correct keys while typing. And I feel it's also worth noting that I'm a woman and have relatively dainty hands. I fear for how bad it is for people with thicker fingers.
One more issue that isn't mentioned: the lack of keyboard shortcuts means only certain apps will have an undo/redo feature, and it would be exclusively in the app's UI. I tend to obsessively copy text I write on browsers in mobile because it can vanish if I switch tabs or the browser suddenly closes, and I've accidentally hit "paste" so many damn times and covered up the text. Heck, sometimes I do it just because the pop-up menu appears while editing and I accidentally hit paste. Mobile browsers don't have an undo/redo button. Meanwhile, I have an app called Writer+ on my phone, and it has an easy undo button at the top. However, the redo button needs an extra tap to open a menu which has "Redo" in text instead of a button.
Text editing on mobile absolutely needs an overhaul. I think it's slipped past most people's attention since all these gripes on their own are so minor. Seeing the issues listed all in one place makes me realize how bad it truly is.
Selecting text in particular is one thing that's frustrated me to no end for years when trying to write things on mobile. I frequently end up trying to pin the tail on the donkey 2-3 times before accepting that I'm going to have to also backspace a couple extra letters and retype them.
I really wish we could get a phone with a keyboard back as well. A modernized version of the OG Droid with the slide keyboard would be a godsend - I LOVED that thing, it was just too slow to keep using.
If you use Google keyboard (and probably others) then a long press on spacebar turns it into a mini left/right joystick for your cursor, enabling fine grained positioning between those pesky llIIllIIl letters. Doesn't help with text selection, sadly, but it makes me wonder if there are other keyboards who are better at it.
You can also swipe across the spacebar to move the cursor left/right.
I have developed a disability with my hands that prevents me from typing on a physical keyboard anymore. As such, I have been confined to either mobile keyboards or, more often, dictation. I am, in fact, dictating this on my phone using Gboard and Google's voice recognition right now.
It helps a lot, but I feel all of your frustrations. Selecting text in particular is an absolute nightmare.
I got a good deal on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and its stylus is mostly useless to me for the same reason physical keyboards are now useless to me. But every once in awhile it comes in handy to use the stylus as a pseudo-mouse in order to precisely select certain text with "smart select." It's absurd that you even need such a thing, but there we are.
The text editing "mode" in Gboard is also rather handy. Having arrow-keys is often a god send.
The extra frustrating thing about the undo/redo thing on Android (and presumably iOS) is that, if you Connect a Bluetooth keyboard, you will find that the normal Windows keyboard shortcuts still work. CTRL+Z and CTRL+Y work as undo and redo in a surprisingly large number of cases on Android. So the operating system supports it... The option just often isn't there.
I hate typing longer form texts on mobile as well, I wonder if a small wireless keyboard would do the trick. It will look absolutely fucking stupid when I whip that out from my jacket's inner pocket in the middle of walking my dog but who cares.
For me it's mostly typing my thoughts out and not really editing, so it's not really a problem for me.
So far, the best solution I can think of is a phone cover with a slide-out Bluetooth keyboard. Alas, those don't exist (that I can find anyway), and so far tentative searches for phone-sized keyboards to try my hand at a DIY version turn up nothing.
It is always refreshing to see someone else created a long post that spells out something that has frustrated you for years. For that alone it was a wonderful read.
What I don't understand about mobile UI designers is that the UI is so clearly broken and so clearly derived from desktop editing, but that they insist you can only use their worthless imitation of a mouse to target the cursor. What do you do when you are at a desktop computer and for some reason don't want out to reach for the mouse? You use the arrow keys!
Why is there no standard way to bring up some arrow keys in a mobile keyboard? It's infuriating. It is possible to chuck in hundreds of emoji, but not four little buttons with an arrow on the label. And while you're at it, maybe also add some modifiers like Control and Alt, but those four would already make a world of difference.
I totally get that it is not a good solution to the problem and that new, more efficient paradigms should be developed. But while we waiting for that, please make a shitty transplant of the complete desktop mechanics. Not only from some random part of it.
For what it's worth, if you're on Android, using Gboard (Google's keyboard), there is a text editing feature that adds in arrow keys, Home and End, Select, and Copy/Paste keys.
Just click the four square button on the top left (next to the predictive buttons. Then click "Text Editing."
The text editing button can also be drag & dropped on the top bar for quicker access.
And on iOS you can tap and hold the spacebar and then drag to put the cursor precisely where you want it.
This also works on Gboard
I find that’s only useful if you want to move the cursor to somewhere that’s a) already on screen, and b) only left or right or above where it currently is.
Good luck if you’re trying to scroll through a URL that’s got a hundred extra bits for tracking (that I want to carefully select and remove, so that I’m left with the base URL of the page itself) or want to select text that’s two or three rows below the cursor.
If there’s one thing I’m frustrated at with losing 3D Touch, it’s that.
Gboard's text editing mode that u/DarthRedLeader mentioned is invaluable for precisely this use case.
Every time I share a URL for someone, I have to trim off all of the crap after the question mark.
The most frustrating part of typing on mobile to me is that, at least in my eyes, there was at least a partial solution to that.
When I originally got my iPhone 7, the "3D Touch" was such a massive improvement to my typing. The fact that I could accurately move the cursor around by hard pressing on the keyboard and just dragging in the direction I wanted was completely game changing. It went from something I hated to something I actually didn't mind.
But then that all changed with the iPhone 11. When they released it and the iOS update accompanying it, as the new iPhone 11 didn't have the 3D touch due to them phasing it out, it unified long presses and hard presses to the same action. I can still hard press on the keyboard to drag my cursor around, but for whatever reason the accuracy is vastly lower now. Half the time it doesn't even seem to work. Definitely doesn't work if you're dragging inside of bar with text longer than what shows on the screen, such as a URL. You used to be able to scroll with it, but not anymore. Now it's hardly different than long pressing on the space bar and dragging, which I do sometimes because the hard press refuses to work.
Sure, the fact that it still partially works means typing on my phone is tolerable, but why should we settle for tolerable when we had a solution that actually made it reasonable? I've been genuinely upset with Apple ever since I updated updated my phone. It was such an incredible feature, and I'm so sad to see it gone on newer phones. The phone is I truly dread the day I need to upgrade my phone; though the feature is a shadow of its former self, it's still something.
I've never had trouble with moving the cursor by holding the spacebar since the 11. Note that it's not a hard press anymore, just a hold. I can still scroll through long strings either vertically or horizontally, and can quickly get to the beginning/end/top/bottom with a quick swipe in that direction.
It's still a pain to type longer responses on mobile though. In the few cases when I need to type out something longer on my phone, I'll hook up a bluetooth keyboard to it.
That's surprising to me that you don't have any issues scrolling. I do use the space bar to move the cursor sometimes when the hard pressing refuses to function, but it always feels less functional than the already weakened 3D Touch. Scrolling up is slower and I can scroll at most only two lines down. With scrolling through a URL or something, sometimes it refuses to scroll past the edge, regardless of if I'm using the 3D Touch or long pressing the space bar; I'll often just scroll over to the edge then just input a couple characters to force it to scroll.
I wonder if it has to do with the screen size or shape itself. It's certainly something I could believe; when it senses your finger on the bezel rather than on the screen it knows you're at the edge while they never bothered to set that up for the older phones, perhaps?
At the very least, your comment made me dread a new phone a tiny bit less. Maybe I'll see if someone will let me mess around in a notepad on their newer phone.
Honestly, arrow keys would be amazing. The closest we have right now is the mouse cursor on the virtual keyboard, but those are dependent on the keyboard and not a feature of the phone. Add in a physical shift button to select text and switch to caps on the virtual keyboard, and some button to bring up the pop-up menus, and the experience would be massively improved. Not perfect, but much better than what we have now.
When using the default Google keyboard on Android you can swipe the space button left and right to move the cursor. Far from perfect but better than nothing.
There are arrow keys on my fine, but they're under Edit Mode.
I'd be down for a standard hardware key on phones dedicated as a modifier, round about where your left thumb sits (or maybe one on each side for left hand typers).
The real-estate it takes up would be more than made up for by the functionality it unlocks. Texting is central to mobile use, so the form of the device should be geared towards that.
To me the most frustrating part is that holding down the backspace deletes text at a speed that increases exponentially the longer I hold it down. So where I might have only meant to delete maybe a dozen words, I often end up holding the backspace down just a split second longer than I was supposed to and end up deleting entire paragraphs. It's especially annoying in text inputs where I can't easily select the entire portion I want to delete-- for example, in the URL bar in mobile browsers. (I use iOS and I'm not sure if this issue is exclusive to iOS.) So I usually just tap the backspace and delete things one letter at a time instead of holding it down... it takes way longer this way but it's less annoying than the feeling of losing control over how much text I delete.
I have been using the Typewise offline keyboard for a few years. I mainly switched to it for privacy (I was using gboard before). But it has several features that I think address some of these issues.
First, you delete with a backwards slide gesture anywhere on the keyboard - long press and then slide left, keep sliding until you have deleted what you want. If you go too far, slide back to the right to undelete.
Second, if you do the slide gesture on the space bar, you can use it to move the cursor. I don't use it as much as the delete feature, but its handy for the "eat the tap" problem described in the article when the cursor is almost where you want it.
Third, capitalization is a swipe up from the key, so it's not two taps to get a capitalized letter.
Similarly, quick access to basic punctuation is provided by two keys on either space bar. Tap for period, swipe up for comma, and question and exclamation on the other side, plus long press pops up a customizable menu of other frequently used punctuation.
It has a hexagonal key layout that is supposed to be faster and more accurate to use, but I have never gotten to trying it.
It is not perfect by any means. The full symbol list is probably my least favorite part as it presents a scrollable screen instead of overloading the keyboard keys. It also has no paste gesture, so sometimes when I need to precisely paste, I will switch to gboard for paste and then back after. But the other features outweigh these issues.
It's also $25 for a lifetime license, but I have found that worth it given how much typing I do on mobile.
I've subscribed and I'm using it right now! Thank you so much for the recommendation, I'm really loving the swipe left to delete and swipe right to undo, this is waaaaay better than the chaotic default backspace. Also loving the multiple undo functionality and the painless autocorrect undo— autocorrect is now no longer such a menace and I really disliked the "shake phone to undo" method 😂
I also really appreciate the option for a lifetime license! I just got an annual subscription for now but will review after the first year, I might want to get a lifetime license then.
I think my only complaint so far is that it's tricky getting to emojis using the swipe-up key for it, but other than that it addresses so many of my complaints typing on mobile 😊
Yeah, it's the democracy of keyboards -- not perfect, but better than all the rest.
Yeah! And in case this helps anyone else trying out the app-- I was having trouble with the swipe-up action, until I realized that my mistake was that I was swiping up and letting my fingertip linger on the screen before lifting it up.
After some trial-and-error I learned that the swipe-up motion is supposed to be more like, pretending you're trying to flick a speck of dust off the screen 😊 Have had no issues since!
An interesting quote from the article:
I wonder how much the quality of online discourse (and our brain development) as a whole is affected by poor mobile typing interfaces.
Imagine if every message had to be painstakingly carved into a stone tablet, and editing required chipping away at your work. Wouldn't you keep your messages as short as possible? Wouldn't you be more inclined to leave errors in rather than correct them? Would your frustration at the process affect the emotional tone of your wording? Would you even bother to make a thoughtful, well-organised post if you weren't seriously invested?
Imagine if the majority of the people in your community communicated that way most of the time. Would that affect your perception of 'normal' language and communication?
Scott Jenson
(tap/click to read more...)
Yes, text editing really is a problem
Text editing is a hack
Start with desktop text editing…
…and then poorly copy it
The 4 changes mobile made to text editing
1. Text Handles
2. Magnifier
3. Selecting text
4. Popup menu
How a tap can be misinterpreted
Obviously, text editing on mobile is possible as millions do it every day. My point isn’t that “it’s impossible” but a much more subtle “it’s much harder than we think”.
No one ever complains about anything lol. That's the worst signal ever to use about UI/UX issues.
The evidence for mobile editing being too difficult: how many times do people write out "sorry about typos I'm on mobile" instead of, you know, fixing the typos? It sounds ridiculous to suggest "just fix your typos" on mobile and that's proof that this is a real problem.
throw it on some various forum dwellers. You'll have them at the house of UX designers like a witch hunt.
I think that's more of a cultural issue than a UX one. the implication with typing stuff on a phone is that phone usage implies being busy and moving around quickly. If you are making a response in haste in a loud environment, no amount of auto-correction will help you.
This is fascinating and I agree with 99% of it. I find it odd that the author seemingly doesn't know you can long press in an empty field to bring to up the menu - you don't have to tap two times as he says multiple times. It hardly changes his overall point, but I was surprised by this omission.
I just tried that here and nothing happened. I had to tap twice to paste the quote above.
Are you on iOS? I've been doing that for as long as I can remember on Android.
Yes, I’m on iOS.
Gotcha. The author said their comments were primarily based on experience with Android so that's what I was responding to
Typing and editing on mobile devices have always been bad, but let me add that I never contemplated mobile edit usability for people with disabilities until I became one of them.
Swipe keyboards on mobile are actually a bit easier to write with for me (one-finger predictive typing) than mechanical keyboards. But editing isn't easy. Positioning the handles for edits is drastically slower and less precise with stiff hands. Android 13 does have a magnifier on selection, but cut/paste/copy menus vary depending on application, sometimes hiding the "cut" option. The selection handles move erratically and I often find that I've somehow selected text that didn't appear to be in the highlighted area.
I'm very grateful for the mention above about the text editing menu on GBoard - arrow keys and Home/End ought to help. Frankly, though, I wouldn't even try to write on an iPhone keyboard if not for work e-mail, iMessage, and Slack responses - it's just terrible. Any iPhone usability hacks I'm missing?
No link to a demo people can hack on/play around with? :-(
Same here, I would love to try Eloquent out
I miss my BlackBerry. None of this was an issue back then.
I really wish I could have some kind of mashup of the modern slab smartphone and any kind of Blackberry. Blaclberries had trackballs!!! Text editing was such a breeze once you'd gotten used to the keyboard!
I'm never going to get over RIM's many failures wrt trying to make smartphones with physical keyboards happen again. I still perk up whenever anyone tries to release a phone with a physical keyboard but so far they've all been half baked duds.
Sometimes I wonder what the smartphone landscape would look like now if RIM had held on to a significant share of the market rather than disappearing for a few years and then attempting new releases well after Apple had a stranglehold on the top end.
I only dabbled with a years old Blackberry I got off eBay but they were nice.
I miss my slide out keyboard on my old Nokia C6. It was the first non flip-phone I had. It was rock solid, typed amazingly well and I thought it looked cool as hell, lol. After it died I repurposed it into a "Pokedex" for my kids and still thought it looked cool as hell.
Although I do write posts on my phone sometimes, it does seem like the wrong tool for extensive editing. When I cut and paste from websites it can be quite annoying.
I wonder how how much of an improvement it would be to use a tablet and keyboard?
A tablet and keyboard is ok. Its been a while since I've used my iPad for typing but I think it supported copy/paste shortcuts and shift + arrows to select.
The issue is on the iPad you can use two fingers on the on screen keyboard to make it move the cursor as if the keyboard was a trackpad. Using a physical keyboard removes the on screen keyboard so you can't using the two finger gesture anymore.
I hope we can see some changes in this, either like the article suggests or maybe something different because I hate where we're at. I used iphones for a really long time but now I have an Pixel with GrapheneOS... I don't know how other versions of android are but this is brutal. Not that iOS is perfect.
One thing that has stuck with me for a while is a complaint that Justine Haupt had (the video is taken down but she's the person thats making a rotary cell phone) she complained that there's no manual for smartphones, theres no documentation on specifically how features work, and gesture controls don't work consistently so you can't tell if you did it wrong or if the phone messed it up. As an example, how to I get that select/copy menu to pop up on my phone? It doesn't work consistently, there isn't really documentation, and I have no idea how to make it work except to keep mashing my screen! I am not becoming a tech illiterate old man, this just sucks. Get off my lawn /rant
Edit: I typed this on my phone and it was awful.
I'm a millennial but started using smartphones relatively late in the game. Still, I'd say I'm relatively adventurous in pressing random stuff/exploring.
I cant count the number of times I've been frustrated with a task, only to learn months or years later that there's actually a simple function to do the thing. How do people figure this stuff out?
Bit silly of an example, but it pains me to admit that it took me an embarrassingly long time after getting my first smartphone to figure out browsers had tabs, and how to find and interact with them.
iPhones do have a manual, they are just hard to find. The tips app comes preloaded as default and it will give you the broad strokes but the last tip it gives you IIRC is a link to the manual for whatever version of iOS you are on.
Actually I just checked and it’s a little more streamlined. If you scroll down to the bottom of the tips app there is a button to tap to read the manual directly in the app.
Honestly, its refreshing to see this, and read peoples replies/experiences. I genuinely have thought that typing on mobile is just something everyone else got, and my frustration is the sign I'm becoming an out of touch old person.
I'm sure I am for other reasons, but I get so frustrated simply sending long chats on mobile. I do a lot of text editing on desktops; I can't fathom trying to edit on mobile, or even type more than, well, this really :'D
Edit - As a sidenote, anyone find Gboard got worse at predicting recently, or am I just trying to see things that aren't there? I tried switching back to Samsung keyboard, but not particularly enjoying it
They should just give up on copying desktop. Make selection at the word level only. Screw having to move a cursor around by tiny amounts. Just throw in the towel and always select whole word on a single click. Always delete a whole word. This would give you faster access to the copy and paste too.
Another idea: copy vim modes! Add a button that converts the letters on the keyboard into something that quickly moves the cursor or cuts or pastes or provides selection. Maybe you get it automatically if you have a selection in the middle of your text.
Another idea: go all in on voice to text. I personally find it pretty good, and much faster than trying to deal with typing. Right now, they only dedicate a single bar to the UI when you are in voice to text mode. Instead, they could replace the entire keyboard while you're talking with more meaningful quick actions that you could use while still staying in voice to text mode. Even if it was just alternative word suggestions, it would be pretty useful I think given how often I need to replace single words because it misheard me. And maybe something for faster emoji access.
I was part of the launch team for Swype. Back when we created Swype, one of the problems we were solving was how to increase the information bandwidth to allow you to use gesture typing to think about text in words at a time instead of letters at a time. There was also a lot of thought we put into editing; many things which still haven't been adopted by other keyboards which copied how to enter text.
I joined that team specifically because I saw text editing to be a huge barrier for touchscreen devices. Swype had gestures for capitalization, Swyping above the keyboard to, which made it really easy to type something like McDonald. Adding quotation marks was as easy as Swyping from the quote to the spacebar or vice versa to pad where the quotes were supposed to be placed. All punctuation, like commas, periods, exclamation points, and question marks had the same exposure. The key itself was the same layout for the symbol layer, so you could train the keyboard to type out strings which were mixed letters, numbers, and symbols without switching. We had shortcuts which could launch things like a selected address, and open up the map provider, automatically searching for the address. We had an edit layer which had navigation arrows and keys for cut, copy, and paste. And the keyboard remembered the last 100 Swypes you made, so you could single tap a word which was incorrect and see 10 alternative words in a word choice window, and use a quick Swype gesture to select which was the intended word; Swype would remember that correction and prioritize it in the future.
We worked within the textedit box constraints but pushed for changes which would advance how you could enter text and edit on a device. Apple wouldn't allow 3rd party keyboards forever. Same is true of Microsoft after Windows Mobile 6.52. There's a lot which could still be improved and I'm disappointed how much has stagnated since Nuance bought Swype and disbanded the team and product. So much work still to do.
Swype was one of the first apps I ever purchased. It was absolutely mind boggling how useful it was and what all it could do. I feel like any modern keyboard app (GBoard included) are huge steps backwards. As you said, it learned your typing habits so the suggested autocorrects would be like 99% correct and sensical (I miss that so much today). I knew about some of the shortcuts you mentioned but am not suprised at all that there were tons more I didn't know about.
I hate writing on mobile, it's really only for me to put down story notes and brief explanations in point form, which I can edit on my PC later. As someone who hates using netspeak and likes typing out words properly, it's a slog on anything other than PC or at the very least a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard if I'm stuck with mobile. There's nothing worse than holding down 'delete' to remove a sentence or just a few words and watching as everything you just wrote goes 'poof' because you held it down too long.
I read this when it was posted, thought, "Hmm, yeah, text editing on mobile does suck," and then over the next several days, discovered that every text I wrote on mobile came with this angel-on-the-shoulder awareness of "Look. Look how much it sucks. Be aware."
I knew it sucked, I was aware, I've been typing on mobiles since there were mobiles to type on, but other than some vague avoidances ("Oh, let me grab the computer so I can type this out.") I never was able to articulate to myself exactly that it does suck, and how much it sucks.
So (genuinely!) thanks for opening my eyes! Reading all these comments there are some solutions it seems, though not as many as one might hope.
One thing I can myself add: for any long form text I need to write, I use iA Writer, which has a simple bar over the keyboard with some basic editing/navigation buttons. You can see it in practice here. This alone makes it possible for me to write longer texts on mobile. I do wish they'd release it as a system-wide keyboard but I doubt that's possible.
Typing on mobile is easily the worst thing I experience on mobile and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Editing is on a whole other level of bad as the video perfectly illustrates.
I wish I could use their system.
I appreciate the thought and work that has gone into this, but heavily lament that it's likely getting locked into the Google walled gardens and maybe even under patents instead of being shared with the world for everybody to benefit, doubly painful as I've been slooooowly trying to extricate myself from everything Google