I am of the opinion that the Time-Progress widget is a whole stand alone feature that if implemented fully to it’s logical conclusion, would do something really special, particularly for mobile users reading experience.
I’ll try explain, with words only.
*Scrolling.
Using the time-progress widget on mobile device, it struck me. This widget applied as a dedicated view, might enhance user reading experience in an incredible way.
It’s that simple.
Make time-progress an extra mobile view option for reading posts Configurable as a user default.
Full screen.
Up and down buttons. (next back / next forward)
What’s happening and I speak as one of many who have used low res flickering green-screen VDU’s onwards to todays incredible screen tech and also count myself lucky to somehow not beed specs almost 30 years later - the varying lighting conditions, time of day and recent Oled PVM issues in the mix across brands - our beautiful organic eyeballs - well they’re under incredible demand and pressure in this modern age.
Sometimes scrolling for some is a little nauseating. Made harder still by trying to fixed a gaze while an element is moving periodically, there being a natural tendency for the human visual system to want to track moving objects, you’re overriding a reflex. This creates ware, reduces focus and ultimately engagement suffers.
It’s a very organic thing, so when I say scrolling, this is what I mean.
It struck me that time-progress widget was a (visually) scroll-less experience that had solved this problem by the nature of it’s design, as a serendipitous by-product, yet was not being utilised in this manner, Most importantly, it is a perfectly acceptable and highly focused way to read a topic!
One post at a time!
If this is available already please point me in the right direction! Thanks.
Yes, that would be my first impulse but at the time and presently I am not in a position until next week to draft up a visual.
However, since I’ve got the inspiration blurb out of my head. Let me try use convention and simpler phrasing to make better sense.
Allow a mobile user a page down / page up like progress in a topic - without use of scrolling as the transition.
The idea is very much geared toward a read-only mode. If a user wants to reply at a point, something like a “jump in” button would take them to normal mobile thread view to reply or like etc etc
Sometimes a user simply wants to keep reading reading reading and scrolling scrolling scrolling breaks up the flow, especially in engaging long topics.
A single tap to with no visual transition. It’s the lightest and most focused experience and the topic-progress widget exemplifies this but for other yet similar purposes, particularly as there is no transition between post previews it struck me as perfectly good.
Come to think of it this is how you read posts on Bulletin boards but that’s a long time ago so I might be wrong, a long long time ago Man those were the days!
Ok, I thought in the absence of visual mock-up. Let me use the topic progress widget analogously.
Widget open = Imagine full screen post view
Time line up or Down = pgUP / pgDN
Post preview = Full post (displaying section of, if larger than available screen)
Transition none = Transition none.
For example, Tapping down moves you through the content incrementally, one tap at a time - which more accurately describes the idea as opposed to my earlier comment “one post at a time”.
If you’re just looking to replicate the next post/last post keyboard functionality that exists this probably isn’t a feature request, as much as a theme component?
Interface wise, it seems almost antithetical to the way mobile/touch OSes have evolved. And can be somewhat replicated using the post navigation bar. IMO
Man those were the days!