Android and app navigation
Android is a multitasking system: we can read mail, visit a link contained in a message, share the page on a social and go back to mail, or anything we were doing before.
Android helps us in all this through, more than the idea of app, the idea of task: a task is something we’re doing, and on Android we can do more tasks at the same time. A task remembers how we started and anything we went through, obviously excluding those moments when we moved to other tasks. So, for example, in the previous situation, the task will remember that we opened mail client, opened a message, visited a link with the browser, shared it through a social app. Each of these, in Android, is called activity, so we can imagine a task as a stack of activities.
The first tool that Android offers us to navigate is the back key: its job is going back to the previous activity in the current task, until you get to the home.
Actually there are notable exceptions: in the browser it takes us back in visited pages history, and when there’s an open dialog it lets us close it.
Many developers believe it’s useful manipulating back button action, creating exceptions that might not be that natural for users.
The other tool, sadly quite hidden until Honeycomb, is the recent tasks list, that you can obtain by long pressing the home button in pre-Honeycomb systems. In this way you can move from one task to another reentering them as we left them. Alternatively, one can go back to the home and open the app that began the task we want back.
Since Honeycomb it got much better, with the recent tasks button, showing us the list ordered by last utilization with a screenshot that helps us remember what we were doing.
One last note is to be made about similar tasks, or tasks with affinity by Android terminology: if I perform two similar actions, the result is that the second will be put atop the task of the first one, avoiding multiple similar tasks. And if, like when we open an app from home, the action is just the same, I’ll be shown the previous task, and this is what allows the use of the home icons in place of recent tasks feature.
The problems of the old navigation method
Even if, seen like this, things look quite simple and direct after all, actually there are cases when navigation can even become frustrating.
Surely it’s happened to everyone to browse Google Play visiting similar apps of similar apps of similar apps… ending with an incredibly long task from which, to get out, one began pressing convulsively the back button.
Another frustrating situation is when we’re doing some secondary activity with respect to the current task (ex: sharing a video via mail) and it takes so long that we forget what we were doing. Pressing back we’ll find ourselves at the video list, while we would have expected the mail list.
The problem in short is that there was no way to be sure of what happened pressing back, nor of staying inside the app you’re working at the moment.
Android tries to deal with both these problems by adding a new type of “back”, that they actually call “up“, that is the button at the top left that lets you navigate up in the app hierarchy. Sometimes it will have the same result as back button, some other times instead, when we’re in a secondary app (ex: video sharing) it lets us leave the primary task and create one just for this other app.
One problem that cannot be solved is complex apps that lack an optimal management of the back stack (the stack of activities that form a task), with results that can confuse the user bringing them into a labyrinth more than a stack of activities. In this case, it’s developer’s responsibility… and it’s your civic duty informing them!
Notifications and widgets: two particular problems
In all this, opening tasks through notifications and widgets plays a separate role. Generally it means taking a shortcut: as an example if we get notification of a message or we see a new one in a widget that shows them, and we touch it, we’ll go straight to the activity that shows the message and possibly lets us answer.
In the case of widgets the problem was that, when pressing back, we would go back to the home, which might perplex those who would expect to go back to the message list activity. The solution was to rebuild the path that one would have followed to get to that activity, so that there are no surprises (note: on pre-JellyBean systems it’s developer’s business implementing this mechanism).
In case of notifications instead the problem is more complex, because the starting point might be something else than the home (we could open a message notification while doing something else). in that case the behavior was to open the notification as if it was part of the current task, so that one could immediately go back to what he was doing. But if this notification requires more attention and some actions to be performed, we would end up with a task piled up over another that has nothing to do with it. Total confusion.
The solution found by Android was to renounce to immediate return to previous task (counting on the new “recent tasks” feature) and opening a new task for each notification.
Conclusions
From Honeycomb to Jellybean (3.0 – 4.1) there has been a real revolution in Android navigability. We have shown you the news, and we hope we gave you a better knowledge about what Android can do and developers should do. What do you think about it? Have you ever had experience with apps that had a bad navigation system? Comment!
Print article | This entry was posted by Andreid on 10 January 2013 at 21:09, and is filed under Androidian News. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
No trackbacks yet.

New crosswords for Crucidroid!
about 6 years ago - No comments
Another update for Crucidroid, the app dedicated to crosswords puzzles for Android devices! We have added new crosswords to be solved, to the delight of all our users! The new schemes included all kind of crosswords already available in the app: classic, without schema, barred and syllabic bars in 12×12 and maxi format. Crucidroid is

February Update for Crucidroid
about 7 years ago - No comments
For all puzzle fans, and especially for Crucidroid users this will definitely be a good news! Infact on February we’ve just released new schemes for our app dedicated to the crossword – remember also that we have just reached the goal of 10,000 downloads for the commercial version and 300,000 for the free version. These

10k times … Thank you!
about 7 years ago - No comments
We’re a little touched and very proud at the same time… but one thing is sure: “Thank you” is really a must. Why? Simple: Crucidroid, the app for Android devices dedicated to crosswords, in its commercial version has recently reached the goal of 10,000 downloads! Actually we kind of expected to achieve these numbers, but

Christmas Gift: Crucidroid at only €0.50! Hurry up!
about 7 years ago - No comments
ParanoidAndroid.it decided to make a welcome – we hope! – gift for this Christmas. Crucidroid, the famous crossword game, will be available in Google Play at only € 0.50 on days 25th, 26th and 27th December 2013. A truly unique offer, which will enrich your Android device with one of the most comprehensive app ever

We’re publishing new crossword puzzles!
about 7 years ago - No comments
With great pleasure the staff of ParanoidAndroid.it announces the publication of new schemes for Crucidroid, the game dedicated to crosswords for os Android devices. In date 7th December we have published new crosswords, and so we’ll try to do every month for te pleasure of our many users! Crucidroid was published in Google Play promising

Available in Google Play market “Андроворд” the Russian version of Crucidroid
about 7 years ago - No comments
With great pleasure we announce the publishing of “Андроворд”, the Russian version of Crucidroid. The game is available in Google Play in the paid version and the free one (freemium mode with a reduced number of schemes). The paid version allows to play with more than 300 russian crossword puzzles, released in time, divided into

Crucidroid and its italian crosswords officially on Google Play!
about 8 years ago - No comments
We’ve officially released the full version of Crucidroid! If you’ve read the previous article on the release of the beta version, you already know that Crucidroid is an app developed for both Android smartphones and tablets that lets you play with 4 kinds of crossword puzzles, share your scores and all this on a good
Notifications and misleading ads on Android: be careful!
about 8 years ago - No comments
On Android there’s a lot of advertisement. We are all used to apps that leave a little space for ads, but there are also other means for ad networks to perform their work with us: one way is creating link icons to advertised sites, but the one we’ll talk about is notifications, AKA push notifications.
Android and always open apps, briefly
about 8 years ago - 4 comments
We’ve already talked quite extensively in a previous article about the way Android behaves with always open apps, and about how a good user should treat them, but we probably went even too deep for some readers. So, here’s a short version of that “essay”, which we recommend you for an in-depth reading. I know
Those absurd ever-open apps, or: why is Android so different from a desktop pc?
about 9 years ago - 9 comments
When common desktop-PC users first approach the Android OS, they need to perform an important open-mindedness exercise which will be surely harder for those who are long time PC users: get used at the idea that you don’t have to close apps. Please note: there’s also a short version of this article, that avoids theoretical
about 7 years ago
Sarebbe utile ed intuitivo tenere premuto back per tonare indietro alla prima schermata o chiudere proprio il task e tornare alla home