Want 3 tile support in lumia with 4.3 screen

Daniel Rubino

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I don't think we'll get it, because small tiles are gonna look way too small...
This.

On the Lumia Icon, 5-inch, the Tiles are just at the point that any smaller and you would have to hold the phone closer to your face to see detail on the small icons. I'd say 3 columns looks best on NL1520.
 

monzki

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I don't mind having smaller tiles on my Lumia 1020. Just let the user have the option for the 3rd column. It's just like the icons on a 4k resolution on a 27" monitor.
 

manicottiK

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I don't mind having smaller tiles on my Lumia 1020. Just let the user have the option for the 3rd column. It's just like the icons on a 4k resolution on a 27" monitor.
Lots of companies and researchers have done lots of testing on user interfaces. They all come to roughly the same conclusion about touch interfaces: to achieve a high probability that the right object is touched, the smallest a touchable region can be is about 9mm square with a 2mm gap on all sides. A 4.3" WXGA screen is 45.2mm across. Assuming no left and right margins, this width would allow for small tiles that are no larger than 7.7mm -- with the side margins, the tiles would be just 6.5mm squares.

What you're asking is that Microsoft ignore testable, repeatable evidence so that they can offer users an experience that many of them will dislike simply because you think that you'd like it or because you like the idea of options. Part of a developers job ought to be to use evidence to help decide which options will probabilistically lead to user success/satisfaction and which ones will probabilistically lead to failure/dissatisfaction.

Options that help a reasonable large segment of users to "hurt" themselves should be avoided. This goes for making touch targets too small to reliably hit, especially when the "penalty" for mis-touching is high (like instantly launching some other app as opposed to doing nothing and letting the user try again) or like making some text or images difficult to read because the foreground and background colors lack enough contrast or different in color.

By the way, is there a 27" 4K touch monitor on the market? I'd be interested in buying one. Most large screen touch monitors seem to be stuck at the 1920x1080 resolution.
 

wuiyang

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reasons you CANT get 3 tile support:
1. everything is based on screen's resolution, not screen size
2. no, you cant have a custom screen's resolution like 983x506, 900x500 (see wikipedia)
3. even if the screen are 100' but screen's resolution are small, it still have only 2 tiles
 

monzki

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Research results are excellent factor for decision making but it does not mean it applies to everyone. Take for example of Lumia 1020 with its saturated pictures on Amber, it was criticized for being saturated but research says (according to Nokia) most people like it. Black theme colored saves you battery according to tests but WP offers a white theme. So does that mean WP should not offer the third column because based on research and testing said NO?

Moreover, the smallest tile on a Lumia 920 is not that really small: Nokia Lumia 920 reportedly gets jailbroken, but there are more questions than answers | Windows Phone Central

Think before you post and also you can use google. :)
 

monzki

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reasons you CANT get 3 tile support:
1. everything is based on screen's resolution, not screen size
2. no, you cant have a custom screen's resolution like 983x506, 900x500 (see wikipedia)
3. even if the screen are 100' but screen's resolution are small, it still have only 2 tiles

Developers of WP can program to consider a 720p display to support the 3rd column. In fact during development of GDR3 it was reported that developers are using a Lumia 920 with the 3rd column. It's not hard to do considering you just need to change the size limit based on a resolution (maybe not good on phones lower than 4.3 inch).
 

manicottiK

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Research results are excellent factor for decision making but it does not mean it applies to everyone. Black theme colored saves you battery according to tests but WP offers a white theme.
I agree on the first point. Black saves power on OLED screens, but has no impact on LCD screens.
So does that mean WP should not offer the third column because based on research and testing said NO?
Possibly yes.

The argument for allowing users to go to three columns is that the user knows best what works for him or her individually. If you accept that, what stops requests for 4, 5 or 6 columns? At some point, Microsoft has to either say no because of some principle or face tile anarchy. The principle is the research which determined what works best for most people. If you're willing to accept "the research shows" as an adequate reply to "why not 6 columns," why can't you accept it for "why not 3 columns on small screens."

I'm not trying to be argumentative and you seem like someone willing to engage in a good back-and-forth, so I'd like to keep talking this out.

Moreover, the smallest tile on a Lumia 920 is not that really small: Nokia Lumia 920 reportedly gets jailbroken, but there are more questions than answers | Windows Phone Central.Think before you post and also you can use google. :)

Please check out the design guidelines at Interactions and usability with Windows Phone -- there's a section about size right near the top. A 4.5" WXGA screen with six small tiles violates those guidelines. If Microsoft breaks its own rules, why should developers follow the rules? If developers break the rules, will that make the user experience better or worse?
 

monzki

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@manikottik

I am on my 1020 not using the wpcentral app so i cant quote your post properly. Anyway, it's been already confirm on leaks that microsoft is reconsidering the 3rd column for at least the 920 and above. So that backs up my claim that giving uset the option is just right. Also why would we need a portrait virtual keyboard on a 520 if the arguement is the tiles would be too small to press. Thst's just silly. Again supporting the third column is not hard to do, they just need to change the size limit of tiles. In fact microsoft already have the code written. It's 1520 vs 1320. They have different resolutions. A small tile in 1520 is different in size vs the same small tile in 1320. It's because of resolution. So whatever they did in the 1320, i think is already in the 920 and above. There should be a single conditinal statement that needs to be removed that checks for devixe screens size so the 3rd column can work on 920 and above.

You said that app developers would break the rules. It's not them who would design the star screen but wp developers. You must have confused wp developers vs app developers for wp.
 

wuiyang

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Take for example of Lumia 1020 with its saturated pictures on Amber, it was criticized for being saturated but research says (according to Nokia) most people like it. Black theme colored saves you battery according to tests but WP offers a white theme.
since white color code are #FFFFFF which mean [FF red, FF green, FF blue], so it took all 3 subpixels to light up to get a white, basically it was like open all the light to get white
while black color code are #000000 which mean [00 red, 00 green, 00 blue], so it does not need to light up any 3 subpixels to get a black, basically it was like close all the light to get black
each subpixel need power to light up, so black are battery saver and less light to shine, so no eye-pain

So does that mean WP should not offer the third column because based on research and testing said NO?
what does this to do with the theme of black and white.. ?

Moreover, the smallest tile on a Lumia 920 is not that really small: Nokia Lumia 920 reportedly gets jailbroken, but there are more questions than answers | Windows Phone Central

Think before you post and also you can use google. :)
jailbroken phone are dangerous since it could be hacked and nokia lumia 920 are 1080p

Developers of WP can program to consider a 720p display to support the 3rd column. In fact during development of GDR3 it was reported that developers are using a Lumia 920 with the 3rd column. It's not hard to do considering you just need to change the size limit based on a resolution (maybe not good on phones lower than 4.3 inch).
480x800 display phone dont get it, it is all based on the display resolution, not screen size
 

monzki

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what does this to do with the theme of black and white.. ?

I was just answering to the post that 4'3 inch devices or even the 920 and above devices doesn't need the 3rd column because research and testing disapproved it.

jailbroken phone are dangerous since it could be hacked and nokia lumia 920 are 1080p

480x800 display phone dont get it, it is all based on the display resolution, not screen size

I don't mean and suggest to jailbreak, just giving a real life example that the small tile on a 3-column supported 920 is not that small. I don't understand your last sentence though, i mean the relation to what you quoted to my post.
 

manicottiK

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@monzki

The issue has never been about resolution. I know that the leaks seem to indicate a "more tiles" option for WP 8.1 just as Windows 8.1 has. On Windows 8.1, that feature works by shrinking/scaling the tiles rather than expanding the tile area to cover more of the background. That, too, lends itself to what you're suggesting for WP 8.1.

The issue has been about the conflict between physical size of the rendered tiles and the physical size limits/guidelines that Microsoft itself imposed. Microsoft says that, regardless of pixel size or resolution, an object must appear to the user as being at 9mm square with a 2mm border. (Of course, they are free to break or change the rule.)

A 4.3" screen with a 800x480 or 1280x768 resolution is 2.21" wide (and 3.69" tall) -- in metric that's 56.19x93.66 mm. If we had six tiles across, we'd need 5 gaps between the tiles. We'd probably also want a left and right margin of at least the gap size. (The margins are currently wider than the inner-tile gaps, but let's shrink the margins for this exercise.) That means 6 tiles x 9mm + 5 gaps x 2mm + 2 margins x 2mm = 68mm. We're short of meeting the guidelines by 12mm (almost half an inch).

Addressing that shortfall means shrinking the tiles by 2mm each, bringing them down to 7x7mm. Now, the guidelines do mention a 7mm size -- twice! Specifically, they say "If space is severely constrained, you can use a minimum touch target size of 7 mm, as long as the width is much larger" and "The minimum touch target size is 7 mm. Use this for controls that are infrequently used or controls that are wide enough (greater than or equal to 15 mm), and only when too much height limits the design."

If the leaks are correct, I can imagine the WP team rationalizing that certain individual tiles are used infrequently and thus satisfy the 7mm height requirement. They could also rationalize that the qualifiers "as long as the width is much larger" and "controls that are wide enough (greater than or equal to 15 mm)" are no longer necessary or can be ignored in this one case because many users are requesting it.

When I earlier asked about "why not 4, 5, or 6 columns," I was joking. However, if we can accept very tiny tiles so that a 4.3" device can have six small tiles across the screen, that same size tile just happens to allow eight small tiles across the 6" screen of a Lumia 1520. Maybe this "more tiles" feature for Windows Phone 8.1 works just like it does for Windows 8. The "standard" number of tiles is dependent on physical screen size (not resolution) and the "more tiles" count is simply one more.
 

manicottiK

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...so black are battery saver and less light to shine, so no eye-pain...
...nokia lumia 920 are 1080p...
...480x800 display phone dont get it, it is all based on the display resolution, not screen size
As noted earlier, on OLED screens, the less light emitted, the more power saved. On LCD screens, it makes no difference what color is shown since the "light" is coming from the backlight, not the pixels themselves.

The Lumia 920 is a 768p device. It's native resolution is 1280x768. It is not a 1080p device. Nokia's first 1080p device is the 1520.

Before talk of a "more tiles" feature for Windows Phone 8.1 came out, Microsoft very specifically said that the availability of a "third column" of tiles was drive by physical screen size, not display resolution. That said, I think that you're correct that no one would build a device that has a physically large screen with a low resolution. Since the "more tiles" rumor, the physical size argument from Microsoft sounds a bit weaker.
 

monzki

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@manikottik

In short the 3rd column for 4.3 screen is technically possible :wink:. I think maybe let's forget about the rule we set and think if it's beneficial or practical to offer the 3rd column. The 1520 made people realize how it is convenient for us (WP users) to have that 3rd column.

With the 3rd column, you can add 6 "toggle" shortcut tiles on top of your screen. I can now use more medium tiles to take advantage of live tiles on my home screen without the need to scroll down, after all live tiles is WP's "native notification center". :amaze:
 

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