User Interface

A bad thing about computer screens? They are limited in size.

You’ll notice this, when you build a UI element with a finite amount of possible values. While a slider might be the first approach, it is only useful if the possible values are limited with a upper (max) and lower (min) bound and also in their total number of values. You cant provide a slider with 2000 values, can you? The typical UI element to use is a (web) number input. You can set a min and max value and you can use some logic to map any user input to a valid input. Sounds great? It is! However, it has an important drawback: the missing slider.

When you open a popup , you want to be able to change the selection without taking your finger off the screen (i.e. just by dragging your finger to the option you want). I recently started tracking my spendings with a budget book app called Splid . This app has not implemented this small, yet important feature. I tried to capture this in this gif. I select an option, swipe my finger up and down and try to select another option. Only when I release my finger can I select the second option.