The designer of a new version of an app sent me the the new designs. I immediately noticed the menu-icon in the bottom right. (In a tab bar)

This is not common and even discouraged by design docs of iOS and Android. So I told him that and he thought we could try it.

After scrolling through the designs I saw the screen where the menu was open; the close button was also on the bottom right. I told him that users are not used to have a menu close button on that position. He said "Every other company is doing it wrong, so we're here to make that difference".. The only thing I thought was 'Okay, so Google is doing it all wrong all the time.'.

So now it's in the app and I don't like it.

UI is not the place to make a difference because users spend 99% of their time on UIs of other vendors.

The designer is full of shit.

Having closing button on right top corner has historical reason from large screens. Having this on right bottom is actualy good idea on phones considering our thumb position on screen.

But, when your designer trying to fight with all others... Yep, he is an idiot.

It is good idea, but terrible idea.

I mean, he's not wrong, Android's UI is a shit pile of horrible ideas.

But inconsistency in UI is even worse.

F

@Lexter ok cool. Now implement a left handed mode that is different from left-to-right reading directions.

I legit would have told him if he wants to break every web convention he can code that shit himself.

As long as app has swiping sidebar, regardless of top or bottom position of the finger, but from the left - it's already very convenient.

And it isn't like we are used to this convention and nothing else works... Designer's just trying to invent bicycle, while tanks are flooding the streets.

@example-user HAHA, yeah!

The fact that the menu is in the bottom right is the main reason why I prefer firefox mobile over chrome. I appreciate your designer for executing the improvements everyone knows are needed but nobody does because "muh consistency the user will freak out if they take 2s to notice the button"

@Nanos Unnecessary complexity i think. But hell, i'm web developer, not an app dev.

Show an error notification apologising the inconvenient button location every time it is pressed.

@electrineer Oh yes, and put the x for the popup in the top right corner of the box so that thanks to conventions I'll find it immediately, because clearly having to skim over the screen is more trouble for the user than changing hand position.

Design conventions aren't the way they are because Google was wise. They are like that because 12 years ago nobody knew any better and since then we keep pretending there's no better way.

Pretending that designers' decisions are invalid just because you read a document issued by a company who very recently made their icons basically indistinguishable is the equivalent of clients making decisions regarding pipelines like they were omniscient.

@Lor-inc "12 years ago nobody knew any better"

I would say we actually know for a long time by now how to design good UIs. The basic principles aren't even that complicated.

In practice it just devolved over time, maybe because UI design got much more complex and people did not increase the invested effort proportionally.

For example a website now could theoretically be accessed by anything between a text-only terminal and 8k VR headsets. And now you gotta figure out how to create a UI using some hip new framework that had more thought put into animations than accessibility, and build apps for 5+ versions of an operating system with 3 generations of design languages because the phone manufacturers didn't find it necessary to update their devices for more than 3 months and Google put about as much thought into the early Android versions as they did with every other failed project.

@deadlyRants This isn't an obscure situation. Things the user has to tap need to be close to the bottom right corner where their thumb sits.

@Lor-inc Just assuming right-handedness is already an accessibility problem for around 10-15% of the users.

@Fast-Nop Still better than putting things in the top left corner. I can reach the top right with a lot of struggle, so that would mean screwing over 85-90% and inconveniencing the 10-15% lefties. Icons in the bottom right will fairly certainly still be within reach to lefties as well.