Action button labels

[Klumpen]

Regarding: One universal always working solution...

"...now Press X...no, not the handhelds X, the in-game one..."

...
"...now you can press your X...no the one you can see on the key no button, dammit"

vs.

"press the north button"

>moves thumb up and presses without looking<

"yeah, now you got it"

Efficiency is not what people want as it seems, but I've seen some people here already refering to gaming buttons this way for years and it's the only universal and logical solution I know of.

 

[Natsu]

And it's not about convincing "enough people that Latin letters suck" it's about convincing ED at the end of the day.

Convincing other unconvinced people that a change is necessary contributes to convincing the unconvinced ED.

 

[EvilDragon]

Actually, using them for + and - would be useful for zooming In webbrowsers or similar

 

[_wb_]

Actually, using them for + and - would be useful for zooming In webbrowsers or similar

Yes, zooming in and out is typically CTRL-+/- in some web browsers and other applications. CTRL-ALT-+/- can be used to toggle the resolution of X.

I wouldn't make + and - their primary function though, I think Delete is more important to have and referring to a standard keyboard it makes more sense to add Insert and Delete to the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys. It would be weird if Home/End/PgDn/PgUp are primary keys while Ins/Del are secondary keys.

But if its secondary function (with Fn / AltGr) is + and -, that is good enough. You would have to press R1+R2+Ins/Del or something like that to scale the browser, which is quite comfortable to do, especially compared to how it currently is on the Pandora or on typical laptops.

 

[_wb_]

The whole idea that prompted me to raise this issue in the first place was to simplify communication about the device (regardless of medium) by giving each button a single simple and unique name that refers to it.  (The simplest way to do this would be to label each with it's keyboard function, but for now I'll accept the premise that they aren't acceptable names in the context of their use as Gaming Buttons.)

I agree that single, simple, unique labels are the best solution (which is why I proposed the Playstation Greek layout in the first place). But that is incompatible with having ABXY labels for backwards compatibility, and it is also incompatible with people who are unwilling to learn new symbols.

Your current approach is to give them multiple names,  but that goes against the principle of clarity of communication that all my objections to ABXY are based on.  Doing that only increases the potential for misunderstanding, as there is no longer a guaranteed common frame of reference.

I don't really agree; I think my proposal is better than having just ABXY symbols on the keys.


On the Pandora, in my opinion the guihint symbols (including the circle and dot) make it more clear which button is meant than if they would be an exact photo of the action button label. The additional positional information really helps.


I don't see how the potential for misunderstanding would increase. If someone talks about Square or Pentagon, it will be quite clear what is meant. If someone talks about East or South-West then it will also be clear. In some contexts, talking about ABXY+- will also be clear enough.

The use of  those icons to refer to the keyboard functions doesn't really work for me, either, as there is no existing basis for making that association between those icons and the keyboard keys you are using them as references for.

Yes, it is true that they are not standard icons. There is no real standard afaik, although I think these are the somewhat official icons:

    ⇞


⇱     ⇲


    ⇟


These don't scale down very well and I don't think they're widely known. To me, their meaning is not inherently more clear than my proposal. The diagonal symbols for Home/End are not aesthetically pleasing to me when put on buttons that are positioned horizontally (west-east), and they could be confused with north-west and south-east.

The only thing that is really clear is "Home", "End", "PgUp", "PgDn", spelled out. But that cannot be used as a position indicator like the dot in guihints.

I also tend to doubt any of your combination designs would scale well to the size of the buttons.

This is how it looks scaled down to 40x40 pixels per (big) button, which is the size of the guihint icons on the Pandora:

Of course on the Pyra we would use bigger icons (probably 128x128 or something like that) to compensate for the insane pixel density -- such low-res icons like these would only be used in low-res retro-style homebrew games that use lots of upscaling.

 

[Neelix]

I agree that single, simple, unique labels are the best solution (which is why I proposed the Playstation Greek layout in the first place). But that is incompatible with having ABXY labels for backwards compatibility, and it is also incompatible with people who are unwilling to learn new symbols.

If you are going to have them labelled as any single latin letter for any reason, then you may as well just leave them as ABXY and call it a day.  Labelling the key with any single latin letter (regardless of additional decoration) means that you still have two keys with the same name, and the problems this proposal was trying to resolve will still exist in which case I see no point in changing them at all.

I don't see how the potential for misunderstanding would increase. If someone talks about Square or Pentagon, it will be quite clear what is meant. If someone talks about East or South-West then it will also be clear. In some contexts, talking about ABXY+- will also be clear enough.

Despite what Klumpen thinks, referring to a button by its compass direction is going to be quite confusing for some unless there is a clear indication of a compass decoration and/or the direction indicators themselves on or around the buttons, especially since there are only 6 buttons in a lopsided arrangement.


There's also the issue of N,S, E and W still clashing with their keyboard equivalents... Unless you want to include the heading as well...  N36, S18, E09, W27?    

The only thing that is really clear is "Home", "End", "PgUp", "PgDn", spelled out. But that cannot be used as a position indicator like the dot in guihints.

Nor do they need to. The positional information is inherent to the position of the buttons. (funnily enough) There is no need to indicate the position on the label, just in the guihints.

- Neelix

 

[Saber]

Actually, using them for + and - would be useful for zooming In webbrowsers or similar

Please do this.

 

[_wb_]

I don't see how the potential for misunderstanding would increase. If someone talks about Square or Pentagon, it will be quite clear what is meant. If someone talks about East or South-West then it will also be clear. In some contexts, talking about ABXY+- will also be clear enough.

 
Despite what Klumpen thinks, referring to a button by its compass direction is going to be quite confusing for some unless there is a clear indication of a compass decoration and/or the direction indicators themselves on or around the buttons, especially since there are only 6 buttons in a lopsided arrangement.


There's also the issue of N,S, E and W still clashing with their keyboard equivalents... Unless you want to include the heading as well...  N36, S18, E09, W27?

Yes, it would be a bad idea to use N S E W to refer to the buttons. North South East West NW SW would be OK though.

The only thing that is really clear is "Home", "End", "PgUp", "PgDn", spelled out. But that cannot be used as a position indicator like the dot in guihints.

Nor do they need to. The positional information is inherent to the position of the buttons. (funnily enough) There is no need to indicate the position on the label, just in the guihints.


- Neelix

Of the position of a button is inherent to its position and in that sense it is redundant to put it on the label. It still makes sense to be able to use a guihint that is an exact match with the actual button label. So it nice to have a label that is "self-contained" in the sense that it provides a clue as to where the button is, even if that means adding some redundant information to the label.


Also, the "redundant" position information is not just a dot like in the Pandora guihints, it actually contains information about the non-gaming use of the button too.

 

[Ziz]

I wouldn't make + and - their primary function though, I think Delete is more important to have and referring to a standard keyboard it makes more sense to add Insert and Delete to the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys. It would be weird if Home/End/PgDn/PgUp are primary keys while Ins/Del are secondary keys.

For you: Yes.
For me: Yes


For normal users: No


In fact: I don't think, that normal users on PC even use page down, page up, home and end at all and even on the Pandora I think most users don't use home and end. I think Fn Backspace makes more sense for delete. Insert can be somewhere else, too. I think most users are just annoyed, if not even confused, when letters disappear when they type.


Furthermore already made Pandora applications could benefit, if they use + and - yet! I am quite sure, that no pnd uses insert and delete except editors.

 

[Kiga]

Blank keys and North/Sud/Est/West to refer to keys would be neat.

 

[_wb_]

I wouldn't make + and - their primary function though, I think Delete is more important to have and referring to a standard keyboard it makes more sense to add Insert and Delete to the Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys. It would be weird if Home/End/PgDn/PgUp are primary keys while Ins/Del are secondary keys.

For you: Yes.
For me: Yes


For normal users: No


In fact: I don't think, that normal users on PC even use page down, page up, home and end at all and even on the Pandora I think most users don't use home and end. I think Fn Backspace makes more sense for delete. Insert can be somewhere else, too. I think most users are just annoyed, if not even confused, when letters disappear when they type.


Furthermore already made Pandora applications could benefit, if they use + and - yet! I am quite sure, that no pnd uses insert and delete except editors.

Text editing is pretty much the killer application of a handheld with a physical keyboard. If web browser zooming is more important than text editing, then you better get a tablet or smartphone.

 

[Ziz]

And you better start reading my posts better, the discussion is long enough already, I don't want to repeat myself over and over again.


I just wrote, that Text editors on the Pandora are probably the only applications using insert and delete right now, whereas + and - is used more often yet imo.


The point of my post was:


Normal users don't use insert and delete these days. They may edit text - and the pyra/pandora is awesome for this - but without using these keys!

 

[_wb_]

And you better start reading my posts better, the discussion is long enough already, I don't want to repeat myself over and over again.


I just wrote, that Text editors on the Pandora are probably the only applications using insert and delete right now, whereas + and - is used more often yet imo.


The point of my post was:


Normal users don't use insert and delete these days. They may edit text - and the pyra/pandora is awesome for this - but without using these keys!

I thought you were implying to get rid of Home/End/PgUp/PgDn as well.

Do you have any studies to back up your claim that Ins and Del are no longer used by "normal users"?

(Also, I wouldn't assume that "normal users" are our target audience.)

I would assume that Apple users and people who are used to on-screen keyboards have learned to use backspace all the time instead of delete. I would assume that people who are used to normal keyboards still use delete. In any case it is very practical to be able to remove characters in both directions. Backspace is good to fix typos if you spot them while you're typing, but for more involved text editing (long documents, coding, etc.), having a dedicated delete button is really practical.

 

[Granitehead]

<edit>

Efficiency is not what people want as it seems, but I've seen some people here already refering to gaming buttons this way for years and it's the only universal and logical solution I know of.

</edit>Cardinal directions aren't logical. There is no reason maps are oriented the way they are, that's just something which was defined a long time ago. It took me years and a good mnemonic to finally memorize which one of west and east is right and which left.

But as that would just be a redundant way of saying right/left/up/down/leftup/leftdown, it at least makes some kind of sense, though very inelegant.

What about just G-Up (spoken like the letter G followed by up), G-Down, and so on? Or R-Up, with R meaning right instead of G for gaming (L-Up would then be dpad up).

 

[comradekingu]

The problem with assigning a letter to an action is made worse by assigning another letter to said letter. When said letter is marked letter A and it does B in the game, is when it gets absurd.

A lot of people have similar trouble with left and right, its not an intuitive mental mapping.

ABXY is similar behavior, but it requires you to unlearn just as much as it provides any benefit.  I think its a hack, and a crude way to emulate what others do wrong.

The PS layout makes more sense, but its trademarked, http://www.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/copyright-and-trademark-notices/

so is the SNES colour layout.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Super_Famicom_logo.svg  Copyright does not apply to simple geometric shapes and colours, supposedly, but trademark law does:
 

"This work contains material which may be subject to trademark laws in one or more jurisdictions. Before using this content, please ensure that it is used to identify the entity or organization that owns the trademark and that you have the right to use it under the laws which apply in the circumstances of your intended use. You are solely responsible for ensuring that you do not infringe someone else's trademark."

"B- b- but.."  you say, but remember t-mobile has solid colour it sues people over thinking about.

 

[Neelix]

What about just G-Up (spoken like the letter G followed by up), G-Down, and so on?

You may have something there...  it worked for the n64 with the c buttons...

- Neelix

 

[comradekingu]

I have used game controllers/joysticks since C64 and amiga. Ask yourself, where are the colours on the gamepad, even if you have an answer, i can assure you someone else has theirs, or another preference. For me it has only resulted in not being able to use any of the 4+4 layouts, because there is no sense applied, only arbitrary mutually exclusive ineptness. And it does look like a toy. Things for grown ups dont apply colours at random.
 
Every big console has its one inept control paradgimn, many of them a variation of the theme "Yellow,red,blue,green and ABXY", if it made conclusive sense it wouldn't be possible to change it and have it be equally bad.
 
A tiny yellow button that is called C and has an arrow on it, is not intuitive. It could work, but not because it makes sense. Nintendo also changes their layout every time, so that has _nothing_ going for it.
 
Contrary to those above players, we are not super big, and can not make static ingame info magically change. Also we add 2 extra buttons, which is why the usual thing fails, fails for us, and is made even worse.
 
So, what does make sense?
 
 
To illustrate:
                                      W(hite)    
R(ed) - G(reen) - B(lue)  -  G (ray)
                                      B(lack)
 
W  R
G     G
B   B
 
See it now?    WGB ↓ (grayscale)      RGB ↓  (colourscale)
 
This makes sense of putting two buttons to the left of the leftmost button in the cluster (gray), calling something G doesnt.
 
The red colour is the one you see. And since colour is the primary recognized function, lets start there:
 
Green and blue gets the most use, safe colours.
Gray is used the least, makes it easy to think of it as 3+1+2 (RGB+gray+colourscale) if you want, or 3+3   (grayscale + colourscale)
 
white red                       sky, fire burns upwards
gray    green                  Matter, green world
Black root                      Soil, blue colour is sea
 
This is a scale:
 
+   top, upwards
:    divided in between
-    bottom
 
The names are easy to say and dont sound awkward
 
Add            hype / exp
div                                multi /star
sub/strike    root /tick
 
^          this is up
√          this is down
 
It has combined uses that flow nicely with non-gaming uses, which dont need extra markings. I argue this because picking something up is infinitely better than a mess of symbols to wade through, that is _always_ a visual disaster.
Hitting a button to change modes is a much better idea.  Game/write/code/settings   or what have you.  A little applet as cheatsheet help and config, language input and aforementioned modes.
The keyboard doesnt send hardware interrupts, so it can be programmed, we own the os, so we can make amends.
Zoom in out,
adjust screen brightness
Page up and down

Symbols look distinct, can be typed on a keyboard in standard char-set.

Good contrast of symbols to button colour.

Colours are very basic, distinct, easy to say.

Red-green colourblind people will have trouble noticing the colour difference between top →red and right →green

(+ ) ( ^ )
( : )       ( * )
( - ) ( √ )

To me, this is the type of stuff that makes sense.

 
Since this is not art as such, but instead purely functional / linguistical / intuitive / ergonomic logic, i dont mind explaining it to death.  This is the desired interpretation from my point of view.

 

[Neelix]

A tiny yellow button that is called C and has an arrow on it, is not intuitive. It could work, but not because it makes sense. Nintendo also changes their layout every time, so that has _nothing_ going for it.

Well I never said we should use Nintendo's implementation of it. But as a simple way of uniquely identifying each key I think it could work nicely.


I would do this as a letter/Symbol pair on each key, G(arrow) for the four main buttons. G+ and G- for the other two.


It's not about being compatible with any particular Nintendo layout, it's about finding a unique way to refer to each key that can be clearly described with both written, and audio communications with little room for ambiguity. This seems to fit the bill.

So, what does make sense?


...


To me, this is the type of stuff that makes sense.


Since this is not art as such, but instead purely functional / linguistical / intuitive / ergonomic logic, i dont mind explaining it to death.  This is the desired interpretation from my point of view.

Explain to death might be right... :unsure:


I'm sorry but none of what you said between those two lines made any sense to me at all, I couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Sorry.


- Neelix

 

[comradekingu]

Its not unique, its consistently bad.   Up down left right  top left top right, still works, you dont have to waste the whole labeling system on repeating what is already implemented.

What im saying is that G is an arbitrary letter, it could just as easily have been C, or K, or Q.  You dont really need to symbolize the arrows.

If there is no reason why a choice is made, then no choice is made, and you havent designed anything, you have given up.

What you are left with is something that can only vaguely be referenced and remembered, and also doesn't work verbally.

So the combo is  

                          g up g left - g left, g minus - g down                   (g for gimmick, you might as well not)

compared to

                          hype - div -  div  -   sub -  root

                                          or

                          red   gray gray    black     blue

                                          or

                          ^      :         :         -           √

While * ←↓→ visually "fits" it doesnt provide information, more importantly It doesnt take away from the fact that a huge marketbase have trouble discerning direction to left and right, much less action added to that.

Thats a slow process even best case.

 

[TrashyMG]

Waaaay too much over thinking in this thread.