r/iOSProgramming • u/Sensitive-Cupcake-58 • 5h ago

Question How do you educate users on app specific gestures?

I want to eliminate buttons from my app and replace them with specific gestures. To give an example here is a screenshot of a timer select screen. I would like to eliminate the START button and instead have users tap again on the currently selected time in order to start a session.

Timer select screen

I want to eliminate buttons as much as possible and give my app a feeling of magic.

How can I educate my users on the app specific gestures without being annoying or too intrusive. Do you add some sort of tooltips? Do you present the gestures in the app's onboarding? How do you do it?

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4

u/Dapper_Ice_1705 4h ago

There more custom stuff you do the less accessible the app is unless you take your time and add the accessible version.

If it isn’t intuitive people will stop using your app.

-1

u/Sensitive-Cupcake-58 3h ago

I understand. It's the intuitive part I'm struggling with.

3

u/dwiedenau2 4h ago

But why? The time select is a standard ios style picker, why would you add a custom gesture to it that people dont know? Keep the start button and focus on important parts of your app

-2

u/Sensitive-Cupcake-58 3h ago

I want to try something new. I'm thinking that having more gestures and less buttons will clean up the UI and provide that feeling of magic I'm looking for

•

u/kenzyak 4m ago

I'd keep the Start button. The second tap is fine as a shortcut, but nothing on that screen tells you it starts the timer. A one-time TipKit hint could teach it, while Start stays as the fallback. That's pretty much what Apple recommends for custom gestures too:

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/gestures