Swipe and scroll, and #facebookdown

What if I told you that swipe and scroll has become standard for dashboards and splash pages of mobile app, across majority of verticals? Probably you would agree and find the observation not very revealing. After decade of perfecting mobile UI these two gestures became the most natural for smartphone users. Dashboards usually delivers a lot of information, therefore the intuitive access to the content is a must. Naturally, people scroll and swipe, swipe and scroll to get what they want with no need to move to another page. Interestingly, the similar concept has dominated desktop versions of the web pages.

The privilege of a blogger hobbyist is to express the individual opinion without necessarily looking for compelling evidence. Now I am taking advantage of this privilege. I am not aware of any study supporting the claim I made at the beginning of this piece – dashboards with swipe and scroll navigation are the most common. It seems very likely to me though, that it is a fact. As far as I remember social media apps extensively used scroll for their feeds, and swipe for the fast search of recommended or most frequently contacted peers. Then, as I have heard but never used yet, came Tinder, and swiping become standard for content selection. Interestingly, usually swipe comes before scrolling. It makes absolutely sense as scrolling assumes content, which spreads downward. How could we possibly find the swipe row if it were put under the long, vertical, scrollable band?

The latter observation is not statistically supported either. I don’t know if anyone make the reliable analysis to show which arrangement is the most popular. But I am confident, that if anybody did so, the result would be exactly like that: swipe over scroll.

Interestingly, while I am writing this, I am apparently unable to check the most popular apps of Western mobile world like Instagram, Whatsapp or facebook. The global breakdown of those three app (and fb messenger, of course) has been damaging online society for more than five hours. Hashtags like #facebookdown or #instagramdisabled are trending on Twitter. Twitter, apparently not impacted, is enjoying increased interest. Again, I did not check that, it’s guessing. But I am sure it is the very educated guess. Fun fact is that facebook has commented on the issue using their account on Twitter. Whatsapp and Instagram have done the same. In such a moment of truth the platform which works, wins.

The news: Facebook is down, source: nytimes.com

Forced by the circumstances of #messengerisoverparty I checked Twitter’s mobile app and its dashboard. The homepage is organized around scrolling of the feed only. There is no swipe here … ooops, my first fact checking has already strongly undermined my beliefs. Nevertheless, Instagram app for sure uses that arrangement. The upper row of recommended users with swipe as a navigation gesture is placed over the photo feed, which is scrolled vertically. I guess I have to wait a day or two to check the other app, assuming that it will be enough to make them work again.

Living in my world of “swipe over scroll” I was clearly surprised when I saw the different solutions which propose the set of horizontal rows, one under another, all of them designed to swipe. ?Recently, the new version of BNP Paribas (in Poland) mobile app was revealed and the app looks the very way. I am not a customer, but always a fan of the bank, which navigates through unchartered seas of unique communication and off mainstream branding. Digitalization has already changed the bank a lot. It is worth following for everybody who is keen on new trends in digital finance.

Back to the app. As far as I can conclude from illustrative screenshot the dashboard starts with three horizontal areas (swipe) followed by vertically arranged history of transactions. The uppermost row contains notifications. The two lower form a product list and shortcut links. The classic content of banking app but arranged differently.

New Go mobile app by BNP Paribas, source: Cashless.pl

The other example is from fintech area – the new digital lending app wireframe I saw few days ago puts product categories into horizontal rows, ready to swipe. Which make me think about mobile e-commerce apps as a whole category. The horizontal arrangement of products is the best practice here. The scroll, however, also plays its role. One can scroll through product categories and swipe to find the product from the specific category.

The longer I think about it, the less confident I am that swipe and scroll is actually the most popular form of a mobile dashboard. Apparently, I have to wait until the global breakdown ends to check how the most popular apps have built their dashboards.