January 15, 2008

MacBook Air’s “Multi-touch Trackpad” is Backwards!

Posted by Eric at 4:48 pm | Category: Technology

Looks neat and slick! Very much in keeping with the new iPod aesthetics.

I was really interested in the new gesturing features that Apple included on the trackpad, but looking at the website, I’m very very confused about the user interface. It’s backwards!

Consider our current setup (on MacBooks and MacBook Pros). With two-finger scrolling, moving the fingers up scrolls up, moving the fingers down scrolls down. The way to think about it is that you’re moving the scrollbar. That’s fine; it’s a nice generalization of using the mouse pointer.

But with these new gestures, there’s some sort of inconsistency. For the new pinch and rotate gestures, the fingers move as if you’re manipulating the objects on the screen. But for the new swipe gestures, you move left to see left, move right to see right. You’re not manipulating the pictures anymore, you’re back to moving the scrollbar! On the iPhone, on the other hand, swiping left moves you to the right, because you’re moving the stuff on the screen to the left (take a book and swipe left on the right-hand page; you’ve just turned to the next page, right?). So it gets confusing; what’re you moving? When are you moving what? Are you scrolling, pointing, manipulating, what?

Another example. Take Coverflow. On my MacBook Pro, when I use two finger scroll and move them to the right, the scrollbar moves right, which means the icons move left. That’s fine, I’m used to it. On the iPhone, if I swipe my finger to the right in Coverflow mode, the icons move right; that’s fine, because I’m swiping the pictures right, and so they should move right. What if, now on the MacBook Air, I were to swipe right on the trackpad? I’ll be back to moving the icons left! Confusing? It is!

So, in a way, I’m a little disappointed by the trackpad gestures (of course, their use is optional), as they seem to break consistency with the other products in Apple’s lineup. Ah, for the days when Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines were brilliant innovations in computer-human interaction.

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3 Responses to “MacBook Air’s “Multi-touch Trackpad” is Backwards!”

  1. Bill Says:
    January 16th, 2008 at 5:21 am

    Seems like it’s only confusing for iPhone users, and I can think of plenty of reasons for not using an iPhone, at least not this early version.

  2. Eric Says:
    January 18th, 2008 at 4:35 am

    Perhaps so; I personally think it’s confusing simply from the point of visualizing what you’re moving around on the screen. Multi-touch on the iPhone is compelling because it is set up as if you are actually manipulating visual metaphors of the stuff. Multi-touch on the MacBook Air, on the other hand, not so much.

  3. Ron Says:
    January 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    I tried it out at MacWorld, and I thought along similar lines. I don’t have an iPhone, so I didn’t realize they were changing an already implemented gesture.

    Here’s what I came away with: I was comparing it to reading a book. The swipe is backwards from the way you would turn the page–slightly unintuitive. However, with a trackpad laying flat on a horizontal surface (the way most laptops are used), the swipe they’ve implemented is actually more ergonomic reading forward.

    What I mean is this: think eBooks. Think reading forward. Try both swipes. The one they picked is opposite, but it feels more natural (at least to me).

    The iPhone is usually interacted with while holding in one hand, at a comfortable angle. Why can’t the gestures be different? This interaction is my biggest problem with tablets vs. laptops.

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