I don’t use smart phones a lot, so feel free to disregard my opinion. But to me, swiping to the left means “next”, like turning a page in a book. If you wanted to leave the site, you’d go ‘back’ to where you came from, which means swiping from left to right to me.
On many Android phones swiping from the outside edge of the screen inwards either from the left or right edge, it behaves like you tapped the “back” button. It is extremely useful to get out of for example an article that was opened on Lemmy or simply navigating through menus on your phone.
A swipe either left or right from the middle-ish of the screen is what you would expect to take you from the previous or next article. Not from the edge.
It is called Gestures Navigation and replaces the three button navigation. It is an available option in the settings if your Android version supports it. Some people don’t like it, personally I prefer it except for that one time some asshole website tries to take advantage of it.
Is the little descriptive icon there the whole time? Is it there only when you try to use the gesture? It might be malicious if there was no warning at all and it just does it… but to me it seems like they’re just trying to apply intuitive design practices in their mobile site design.
Not everything is an attack, even if one feels attacked.
No, it doesn’t work that way on iOS in my experience. Swipe from the side of the screen is application-specific.
Swipe from left is always “go back to where you were previously” or “go back to the main menu of this application.” Swipe from right does nothing unless the application defines it.
The Independent’s feature might override an iOS browser’s “Forward” feature, if you already used the “Back” feature.
Idk why we had to get rid of swipe up from the bottom where the 3 icons used to always be. Now if you want to get at all the open stuff I have to execute a corner.
On iPhones and iPads, swipe from the left to go back. In a book on such a device, swipe from the right to go forward.
On eReaders, particularly Kindles, tap on the right side to go forward; tap on the left side to go back.
On Android with gestures enabled, swipe from the left side to go back. Or… swipe from the right side to go back. Counter intuitive but apparently at least one person uses that.
Assuming OP has standard gestures enabled, they could still swipe from the left side.
It is almost like this is why we had originally decided to put navigation buttons at the very bottom of the screen where they are easily accessible both by left- and right-handed users.
And then larger and larger “handheld” devices made that physically awkward as people tend to hold their phone near the middle to balance the weight and oh look my thumb doesn’t reach the top or bottom anymore!
I shouldn’t have to adjust my grip on my phone to change the way I swipe to exit the website because that website decided to replace a commonly used functionality to make it different for their website alone. I kid you not I almost didn’t see that button because my thumb was naturally placed in front of it.
There is already a way to make a gesture that navigates “previous” or “next” by swiping left or right. It is by swiping from the center of the screen outwards and it is how that website should have made that gesture work if they didn’t want to interfere with Android navigation gesture users.
I don’t use smart phones a lot, so feel free to disregard my opinion. But to me, swiping to the left means “next”, like turning a page in a book. If you wanted to leave the site, you’d go ‘back’ to where you came from, which means swiping from left to right to me.
On many Android phones swiping from the outside edge of the screen inwards either from the left or right edge, it behaves like you tapped the “back” button. It is extremely useful to get out of for example an article that was opened on Lemmy or simply navigating through menus on your phone.
A swipe either left or right from the middle-ish of the screen is what you would expect to take you from the previous or next article. Not from the edge.
My android doesn’t seem to do that. I just use the back button.
It is called Gestures Navigation and replaces the three button navigation. It is an available option in the settings if your Android version supports it. Some people don’t like it, personally I prefer it except for that one time some asshole website tries to take advantage of it.
I think they’re much more likely ignorant to this than malicious.
Is the little descriptive icon there the whole time? Is it there only when you try to use the gesture? It might be malicious if there was no warning at all and it just does it… but to me it seems like they’re just trying to apply intuitive design practices in their mobile site design.
Not everything is an attack, even if one feels attacked.
Never heard of dark patterns? There’s a history of websites doing shitty things like this on purpose
I have, I think ignorance of a niche android setting is far more likely.
A website that big is probably malicious, as I feel like iPhone has the same gesture (don’t quote me on that)
No, it doesn’t work that way on iOS in my experience. Swipe from the side of the screen is application-specific.
Swipe from left is always “go back to where you were previously” or “go back to the main menu of this application.” Swipe from right does nothing unless the application defines it.
The Independent’s feature might override an iOS browser’s “Forward” feature, if you already used the “Back” feature.
edit: I answered to the wrong comment
Also sucked for a bit due to the “drawer” style Google pushed before lmao, swipe from left to right “oops opened the drawer menu”
Idk why we had to get rid of swipe up from the bottom where the 3 icons used to always be. Now if you want to get at all the open stuff I have to execute a corner.
That first day was a real bitch and a half.
What version are you using? It is still working for me on Android 15
(what would be a good alternative to Imgur for gif/video hosting? Even though I always use the direct link)
That’s pretty much the standard.
Assuming OP has standard gestures enabled, they could still swipe from the left side.
Right-handed android user. I shan’t be reaching across my screen with my right thumb to use my gestures “correctly”.
It is almost like this is why we had originally decided to put navigation buttons at the very bottom of the screen where they are easily accessible both by left- and right-handed users.
And then larger and larger “handheld” devices made that physically awkward as people tend to hold their phone near the middle to balance the weight and oh look my thumb doesn’t reach the top or bottom anymore!
Is this a tiny hands problem I’m too normal to have?
No.
Gestures are also easily accessible by both left and right handed users, when one side hasn’t been replaced with a different function.
I didn’t say it wasn’t convenient. I said it was counter intuitive.
I shouldn’t have to adjust my grip on my phone to change the way I swipe to exit the website because that website decided to replace a commonly used functionality to make it different for their website alone. I kid you not I almost didn’t see that button because my thumb was naturally placed in front of it.
There is already a way to make a gesture that navigates “previous” or “next” by swiping left or right. It is by swiping from the center of the screen outwards and it is how that website should have made that gesture work if they didn’t want to interfere with Android navigation gesture users.