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What is the preferred method of navigating between tabs in an android app? Is it:

android tabs

a. Clicking on them?
b. Swiping left/right?

I can't seem to get a definitive answer from the android design guidelines page.

I'm porting an iphone app that has a 3 tab homepage with a number of swipeable feeds (much like the bbc news android app). Rough wireframe:

my wireframe

If the preferred behavior is to swipe through tabs then this page will need to be re-designed.

boz
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4 Answers4

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Guidelines from Android Developers

Fixed tabs should always allow the user to navigate between the views by swiping left or right on the content area. http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/actionbar.html

If your app uses action bar tabs, use swipe to navigate between the different views. http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/swipe-views.html

Practices from award-winning application

The design of your application is similar to the previous implementation of "Pulse News" (Android).

They used tap instead of swipe to avoid accidental context switch.

Community
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Ivan Chau
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I'd say to use taps on the tab. To me, it's more intuitive because I would think to tap on that thing if I wanted to go there. Swiping is more work that necessary to get the same effect, and can actually confuse the user.

This can deliver a double functionality, too, because you could optionally give the functionality to swipe the tabs bar like your feeds if you had more than three visible tabs.

Jordan Thornquest
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  • +1 Even when there are more tabs than fit in the view port, I'd sooner use navigation arrows than trying to get a user to swipe tabs. As mentioned in my comment to A.Macdonald's answer: before this question it had never occurred to me to swipe tabs. – Marjan Venema Feb 13 '13 at 18:54
  • Swiping between tabs is something that google is trying to push at the moment - http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/swipe-views.html#between-tabs – boz Feb 13 '13 at 21:05
  • Excellent point, Marjan! Also, I'm not an Android user, boz, so I wasn't aware of their initiative. Personally, it still seems counterintuitive. There's a fine line between using what's familiar and trying to teach something that may be new or even more efficient, yet entirely unfamiliar. In this case, swiping tabs isn't really useful for anything more than being a different, more bothersome way to navigate. – Jordan Thornquest Feb 13 '13 at 21:45
  • @MarjanVenema Actually, I disagree with using arrows to scroll through tabs; the scroll arrows are virtually always at the extremes of the screen, which can make them difficult to use when you have a phone in a protective case. If swiping to move through a horizontal arrangement of GUI items is an option in your design, meaning that there is a definite area in which to swipe, in which the obvious effect of a swipe would be to scroll, then I as a user want to be able to use that gesture. – KeithS Feb 13 '13 at 22:12
  • However, that means that I do totally agree with Jordan's answer to the OP; you tap on a tab to select it. – KeithS Feb 13 '13 at 22:15
  • @KeithS: yeah, well, maybe :-D. I guess in that case I would opt for always swiping on the tabs to get to see more tabs, but never swiping in the normal view to achieve the same. Swiping in the normal view should be reserved for scrolling the same content, not switching views. – Marjan Venema Feb 14 '13 at 07:08
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As an Android user I say swiping between tabs is the future... I instinctively attempt it on tabbed interfaces and where a component has internal swipes (like your scrolling gallery above) then I would expect them to work separately and not swipe the container aswell...

I would obviously expect the tabs to work on clicks also... loads of work to make it seem simple eh?

A Macdonald
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Do some reaserch and consider which content will be more interesting for your potential users, and where/when they want to use swipe gesture more often.

I think that:

1) when you have a lot of tabs with different content which will be frequetly used - add swipe as alt option

2) when content in individual tab is less desired and users do not have to switch between them often - use taping only

It really depends on content which will be in this tabs. If you do not need big pictures, long description etc. then option with swipe insert single tab will be just fine.

Phil Mobile
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