Hello

I'm working on an app that is both a game and a ‘concert/musical album’.

It starts in concert mode and then to go to the game menu you have to swipe in the middle of the screen in any direction. Then you can swipe again in menu to go back to the concert mode.

For artistic reasons, I want to avoid having words/instructions right away when the app starts and I am hoping the user having no other options will intuitively swipe the screen - intuitive swiping is now used successfully in apps like Twitter and Instagram.

I'm wondering if I can get away with it. I'd probably have these instructions at the top of the app description in the App Store or even in the game screenshots, I just don't want them in the actual game - hoping it to have a feel of something untouched by human hand (the setting is a forest and the characters in the game are birds).

Hoping to get some good opinions on this, thanks!

It feels more intuitive when there is an item partially drawn off the edges of the screen, letting you know there is content to be seen to the side. There may also be arrows indicating the directions.

It is less intuitive and sometimes completely non-visible when there are no visible indicators of other items. Worst case is when you show a single item directly inline with everything else, and no reason to interact with that area. Chances are good in those scenarios a large percentage of users won't interact.

plapps said:
For artistic reasons, I want to avoid having words/instructions right away when the app starts and I am hoping the user having no other options will intuitively swipe the screen

Agree with the above, visual indication is absolutely required imo. Exposing functionality is always more important than artistic design.
So what you could do is showing blinking arrows just for a second. After that time they disappear and no longer obscure the view.

But the reason i respond is the thread title. You want to know what people would do in a certain situation? Then you bring them into this situation, but you must not tell them what they should do. Otherwise the feedback you get is already biased from your goals and becomes worthless.
(I know how difficult it is to keep quiet while you show somebody your game, but just saying ; )

@JoeJ Ah yes, the few people that tested the game were told beforehand (or while I stood over them and watched) to swipe… lol… I should have kept quiet. You're right - it's difficult to do so in that moment…

I guess I am asking willing participants of this thread to look into themselves and examine their habits/experiences of using various mobile apps in general, if they have an ‘instinct to swipe’ as one of the actions they would take to figure out how to maneuver an app - in a situation when there are no instructions on screen, but you know you're supposed to do something.

I am obviously biased and know how my app works, but I feel like apps like Twitter and Instagram have somewhat recently added swiping as a way to maneuver them. And using these apps has taught me to try swiping to eg go back to a previous screen - so much that now I try to do it in apps that don't have that feature, and when it doesn't work there I think to myself ‘this app should implement that swiping thing.’ So I think swiping will become a standard at some point and people will use it instinctively without the need to tell them that swiping is an option - but I guess we're not there yet… Or are we? ?

Also, ‘non-standard’ controller is one of the main features of the game - the menu and gameplay uses two up/down sliders, which you are meant to slide your finger over. But I've noticed that people/testers have an instinct to use them as buttons and lift their fingers.

plapps said:
So I think swiping will become a standard at some point and people will use it instinctively without the need to tell them that swiping is an option - but I guess we're not there yet… Or are we?

Well, i'm no smart phone user, so can't confirm any assumptions.
But my impression is those assumptions of yours are self confirmation bias, and the origin is artistic or design intention, and being just too focused in general. That's no bad thing, but it causes conflicts with our self, uncertainty, or nitpicking on little details.
Often this form of uncertainty becomes obvious only after a long time has passed, and by looking back we now know which decisions would have been obviously right.
To me this often happens at least. If only we could look at our current work from some distance… : )

plapps said:
the few people that tested the game were told beforehand (or while I stood over them and watched) to swipe…

In other words: You were aware of the missing information about the option to swipe. Otherwise you would have had no need to tell them.

If that's true, and you don't want permanent GUI infos on screen, showing the controls shortly and then fading it out isn't bad. You can do it still in a subtle way, eventually disabling it completely after the user has used the functionality a few times.

Or - like games often do - show a tutorial. E.g. when introducing some new skill / upgrade with a pop-up and a video.

There surely are many ways to give this information. And on your side i would include this to be sure. Assume your users are completely dumb. That's no disrespect, but actually the contrary.

@JoeJ Thank you very much!

Also be careful with swipes for navigation inside programs. Many devices (especially on Android) get configured with swipe gestures at an OS level. Further, there are users who can't do them so you must always provide an alternate.

I've got several “swipe from the edge” gestures configured on my phone, and it's frustrating when an app thinks they're providing a nice feature but instead it breaks my typical workflow. If you're going to have a gesture-based interface it is critical to also have a non-gesture interface too. While you can display stuff outside the “safe zone”, the user interface concept remains important. It's all under basic usability. It isn't just power users, but also many people with disabilities who have limited ability to perform motion-based gestures.

@frob Thanks! At this point I'm developing for IOS, which also has OS-level swipe gestures from bottom edge and from the top edge that work on top of all apps. So I made my swipe within an invisible rectangle at the center, covering maybe ⅔ of the screen. This seems to separate these functions.

Good point about people who cannot perform such gestures, I have to think about how to address that. I think that being aware that the gameplay controller which requires the use of both hands (thumbs) and a sliding motion was in itself limiting, I sort of assumed that this app would simply not be for everyone, but since in addition to being a game the app is also an album of music, there is no reason why at least that part of it couldn't be as accessible as possible.