Finally so frustrated with this issue decided to post.
Whatever my muscle memory for going back is - it always does something else to what I expect. Even when I pause and think, I so frequently choose the wrong back button.
Please fix. The following will give a predictable and consistent user experience:
a. Remove button 2 - altogether. gone
b. Pressing button 1 should go first through previous web pages, until reaching the article list.
c. The swipe gesture 3 should replicate button 2.
This behaviour is predictable, and the instinctive back gesture and navigation button 1 will show the last screen, not something unexpected. A user shouldn’t need to decide which back button to use.
I wholeheartedly disagree with David. (Sorry, David!) The way it is currently implemented is faster to use than the alternative listed. If I dig myself down a rabbit hole of links I don’t want to be forced to swipe backwards 10 times just to get back to my feed.
David, have you considered not using the in-app browser but rather using Safari?
You know, I have a couple apps that behave in the manner you describe (Tweetbot, for instance) and I much prefer having two back buttons. The nice thing about NewsBlur’s in-app browser is that it preserves history between opens. If you accidentally hit the wrong back button and are returning to the story instead of whatever in-app browser link you were visiting, you can just re-open the browser and hit the browser’s back button in the top right.
I find that the back button which changes action depending on a hidden context is much worse for the user than having two back buttons which serves different purposes.
Two buttons is the way to go, but I think the bigger issue is that the buttons don’t really give you any idea of what will happen when you tap them. Most other apps I’ve seen treat exiting the browser as a “close” rather than a ‘back’ gesture. Here’s Echofon, for example, in which the in-app browser slides up from the bottom of the screen.
However, personally I now have NewsBlur configured to use Safari instead of the in-app browser… so I don’t care
This is probably the best way to handle it honestly. You get rid of all ambiguity (well, what does a swip from the left edge do? close or go back a page?). All controls are also at the bottom where they belong, so that’s good.
Hmm, I wonder if that’s some kind of standard UI provided by Safari or something, sure looks like it.
I used to have the in-app browser appear from the bottom (modally), but I switched to right-side navigation (push) to allow you to side-swipe back to the story. And the navigation bar’s back button should reflect that. The filled in back arrow on the top right is the browser’s back button. I could change that to text, but I’m not sure that’s an improvement.
