Quote:
Originally Posted by guma
That box on the 'full screen' sleep cover looks terribly ugly indeed. (And the banner already was not exactly aesthetically pleasing.)
What's the purpose of indicating sleep mode in such a crude way? A cover is displayed while looking at the first page of a book that includes a cover or in sleep mode. Do they really worry about users confusing these two states? The old banner at least had the % read info, the new one is just a useless, awkwardly dimensioned and awkwardly placed box.
The new home screen too seems to be a step backwards from an design point of view. But it might well be more ergonomic than the old GUI in some use cases.
One wonders what motivates KOBO to implement such - arguably pointless - design changes when they could make use of their resources to implement some useful features and/or fix known bugs instead ...
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Out of curiosity, have you ever handled an Aura in sleep mode with the covers set to full screen? The only way to get a book cover without a % read is to not have selected a book to open.
In the real world, after you have selected a book to read, the box on the screen which, in my opinion, seems to be set so it will miss the majority of book titles and author's names, does display the % read and, if the reader is connected to a power source, the battery %. In light of your criticism above, this suggests that you have not seen a sleeping Aura with a book cover displayed in full screen mode. If you don't use the full screen mode, you get sleeping and, if connected, the battery % above the book cover and the % read below it. Powering off the Aura changes the background for the box in full screen mode otherwise the portion of the screen around the book cover to black making it very easy to determine which state it is in.
As for the new GUI, it is a definite step forward. You get more information displayed compared to the carousel, adding 5 new books doesn't push all your current books (in progress and finished) off the screen and most of the tiles are dismissable. I'm not that impressed being able to go to a location in the library by inputting a page number since I use search to locate books but some people have indicated a liking for that option. I like seeing a single tile that says I added 7 books which I can use to open the library in recent mode without having to open the library and switching to recent mode every time just to find the book I was reading when I decided to add some new books.
As for worrying about the user confusing the states? Yes, it's a valid worry. Most the ebooks I buy open on the cover. If there is no indication as to which mode it is in, how do I
visually determine whether my Aura is waiting for me to tap the screen, sleeping or powered off? If I put it to sleep, how can I be certain that it is sleeping and not powered off or still waiting for me to tap the screen?
Regards,
David