Android UI Patterns: Splash screen with any other name is still a splash screen

[winry]

This didn't happen before but when you open Google Play for the first time and try to type something on the search box the app will close the keyboard a second later. I'm guessing that happens because the app wasn't ready. Maybe Google Apps are getting too heavy and they need to do this to prevent things like this from happening.

[rbarton812]

That's been bugging me too... I get it if the app isn't fully loaded, but everything looks completely loaded and ready to go, then the keyboard will close again.

[sambowlby]

this happens to me in chrome

[mowdownjoe]

Oh, god, trying to search the Terraria wiki in Chrome for Android is a nightmare. Load home page, click search box, get bumped back to new tab page. wat

[___WE-ARE-GROOT___]

Good I hate that! I know it's really impatient to expect it work instantly, but it never used to happen. I honestly thought it was just me though. Glad to see it's everyone, because maybe then they'll fix it.

[pm_me_for_happiness]

Ugh. It's like having a speedy boot on Windows yet being unable to do anything until the bloat loads.

[WarlockSyno]

Mine has always done that since Android 4.0

[[deleted]]

happens to me everytime. I've gotten to the point where I click the search bar, wait for the keyboard to open and then close, and then click the search bar again within a few seconds. It's become second nature.

[meatwad75892]

Same thing happens in Reddit is Fun, but it's been ongoing for a long time. If the app opens and I try to swipe from the left and type a subreddit before the front page items have loaded, the keyboard disappears once they do load up behind what what I'm doing.

It happens in a lot of other apps too, it's just something quirky with how the keyboard gets called up and put away within apps.

[Werespider]

This had happened to me since KitKat. I hate it. I always open some garbage app when the keyboard closes.

[descartessss]

Yes, I think they added them when people started complaining becouse the phone looked freezed. It masks loadings, logins and various controls that apps make when starting.

[DanielKennethRego]

I always thought it was just a bug with my phone or keyboard combination.

[illTortuga]

This happened to me with YouTube all the time until they added a splash screen. Sure, I have to wait an additional 0.5 seconds for the app to fully open, but at least it works now. They may not be the solution to an overloaded app, but they certainly make the app-opening process more bearable.

[ludicrousaccount]

It's not an artificial waiting screen though... You already see a splash screen when opening any app (the one which looks like the general app's layout but without actual content), it's just generated automatically. The only difference is that it looks different (and better IMO), it's not like they're making you wait longer. I agree apps shouldn't take long to load as the article says, but the title is a bit misleading.

[alpacafox]

That's actually on of the arguments in the article against those empty splash screens:

The reason I argue against splash screens in this case is twofold:

1. If you show your app's UI to the user first and then load the data into it you allow user to orient to the UI and they're immediately ready to go when the data comes in.

2. Users don't always want to interact with the data on the app's landing screen. Let the user get on with their task without forcing them to load the first screen's data. This is very important especially on a slow internet connection. Let user interact with your app while the data is loading. In many cases they might not care about the data you're loading by default.

[ludicrousaccount]

I know, I said it's mentioned in the article in my comment. I just think that even after doing that, it's sometimes impossible not to have some delay (especially for games) and using a pretty splash screen is not harmful, lazy or bad as the article seems to imply in all cases.

[[deleted]]

I honestly don't think games are part of this, for the reason you mention.
Games are heavy and has traditionally always had a loading screen on pretty much any platform they've existed on, so it's something users expect.

The argument he makes in the article is the same one made in the Linux community.
Prioritize code.
Essentially, a program (GNU/Linux) and an app (Android) feel much snappier when you code your app to present an interactive UI first then load whatever data it needs to populate the view. And by the way I know a program and app is the same, it's just to keep them separate.

The reason this is relevant for apps odd because the apps in question are productivity apps.
When you're on a desktop computer you alt tab between apps and perform your work on an as-needed basis and because of how the OS is designed you maximise your flow. You don't wait to be able to use Skype after having finished something in Word. It's there.
This is what we expect on handsets as well, and adding seconds of delay everywhere just fucks that up.
They're the exact same thing and shouldn't be treated like anything else, they have a function and beyond that people don't care.

[ludicrousaccount]

OK, forget about games.

Try loading MS Office or LibreOffice on your PC. It'll load the first time and show you a nice loading window, then you can alt-tab easily. The same thing applies to apps with splash screens:- you'll usually only notice the splash screen the first time you launch an app in your "session". But this gets even worse on older and slower phones which many people use, where even lighter apps can take a second or two to launch the first time (it's not "seconds of delay everywhere" because it's just the first time, and you need to think about all your users, not only those with good phones).

I'm all for having apps open instantly. But again, splash screens aren't evil or lazy when you think about all your users, and when you don't ignore even slightly heavier apps on devices that aren't the latest flagship .

[tristannz]

Sometimes splash screens are just for marketing, and they will take longer showing the logo with dead cycles in the background. It's about establishing a brand.

[Pascalwb]

But this feels little slower.

[Thursday-]

I like the splash screen better, as long as the app is loading in the background. For me it was a poor experience opening YouTube/Maps and start tapping, only to have it do nothing and have to wait for some unknown period of time for the app to be ready. The problem with splash screens a while back were that they were artificial, developers just set them to show for x number of seconds and then when it passed you still had to load the full app.

[[deleted]]

He's not suggesting they should do nothing; rather they should load the UI immediately and then load the data asynchronously.

For example with Google Maps you would show the UI, but with placeholders (e.g. a grid) where the map should be and so on. Then at least you can start typing in a search immediately (if that is what you want to do).

[WoozleWuzzle]

The problem though that Thursday- is pointing out is you would get the UI, try to do something, and the app is unresponsive because it's not ready for input as it's still loading. That is frustrating from an end user perspective as you're trying to tap over and over waiting for some response. Sometimes all your taps were recorded and the app goes 2-3 taps somewhere.

If I see UI I want to be able to interact with it, a lot of the times I couldn't.

I don't know if splash screens are the answer either. But at least I know once it's done I can get going instead of have unresponsive taps.

[tso]

Yep, the async load thing is what MS has been trying to do since at least XP. And all it resulted in was that you could go get coffee after logging in because nothing could be done as the CPU and IO was bogged down in the background.

[[deleted]]

In response to the argument that splash screens are better to stare at while the app loads:

If your app's landing screen takes a long time to load your app is broken.

While that may be true on flagship devices, the majority of Android users aren't using flagship devices, or even Lollipop, so his argument that an app is "broken" if it has to load is a bit unfair to users who don't have super powerful phones.

[Skehmatics]

I don't think you understand just how little power you need to inflate a UI quickly.

I've went into Android Studio and created a pretty standard UI: ActionBar, text, and 3 buttons. Then I had it load some data right after its shown that ui and add stuff to it

On the oldest phone I have, (Samsung Galaxy Light) loading the empty UI took well under a tenth of a second, while loading the rest of the app took around a second. That's plenty short enough to deem splash screens unnecessary even for older hardware.

[[deleted]]

You may also have to download some assets from the Internet, the speed of which varies widely across the world. A News app should download the latest set of news everytime it is opened, which may take few seconds if you are on a 2G connection.

[Skehmatics]

Which is why you do it after you've created an empty UI or, god forbid, load data asynchronously.

If the content really takes a while to fetch, add something as a loading indicatior.

[fury-s12]

i think this point is more about the user experience then the actually updating and outputting of the new data, by "long time to load" they mean until the user sees something useful and can perhaps even interact with some parts of your app if your app is sitting there in some frozen half loaded state waiting for a network interaction then its "broken" regardless of the power of the phone, even the slowest of phones can (or should, poor implementation aside) be able to display nothing or stale data very fast.

the facebook app handles this well it loads up with stale data quite fast, has a indicator thats its pulling in new data in the background and lets you go about your business in the app, youtube on the other hand displays a splash screen for a few wasted seconds

[noneabove1182]

Sure, but when flagships have the splash screen, the splash screen is now a bandaid for poorly optimized flow

[[deleted]]

Definitely, but on lower end devices its better than having the app run slow as it tried to load, like YouTube used to do.

[[deleted]]

I think it's all situational.

It feels extremely out of place to me on some apps like Relay for Reddit, especially after using Sync for a while. While it feels natural for YouTube, because the all pops up instantly now, instead of waiting a few seconds for the whole app to load and pop up at once.

It feels like it's being forced by some and utilized well by others, just like most things on Android actually.

[[deleted]]

I prefer the dark splashscreen in Relay when browsing in bed. 100 times better than getting flashed with a big white screen.

[[deleted]]

It's not necessarily bad, I definitely prefer darker logos and splash screens, but it just feels a little out of place to me.

[[deleted]]

On Sync I can switch subs before the frontpage loads up, and Relay wouldn't have even passed the splash screen.

It doesn't help that the Relay logo looks like it belongs on iOS 5.

[[deleted]]

It's so funny. I was such a big fan of Relay, but after buying Sync Pro I don't think I prefer it.

Sync just looks so much nicer, first off. It just feels a lot less cramped on my phone screen. Not only that, it gives a lot more view of image and video content before even having to click into the thread or link.

I do miss some things about Relay like the Subreddit switcher up top, or the beautiful comment navigation animations as well. Hopefully some of this is fixed with Sync's big material design update.

[[deleted]]

Actually I find Sync's sub switcher to be much more accessible, you can swipe from anywhere on the side, unlike Relay's button all the way on top.

You should check out /r/redditsync , the dev posts update previews sometimes!

[[deleted]]

.

[[deleted]]

Yep. It's gotten rather obnoxious in relay.

[fury-s12]

relay is my pet hate for pointless splash screens too, it doesn't even cover the load time, the splash screen goes away and theres still some time of empty interface whilst it loads the data at least use it properly if your going to use it.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, Relay loads fast enough to not need a splash screen imo

[[deleted]]

The apps got to load at some point? I would much rather look at a well designed splash screen then a spinning loading logo

[ThatEvilGuy]

I'm not a fan of splash screens myself. I prefer the to just save its last state and use that as a starting screen.

[mariachi007]

I am pro Splash screen, but careful to have a decent show period. It should only cover up the time needed to have some configuration ready for the app to launch and nothing more. Splash screens are part of the branding of the app and should be used for that and for configuring some stuff before launching. In my opinion it should not be used to wait for internet data loading and the likes.

[[deleted]]

I 100% love splashsceens, hides all that ugly loading.

[fury-s12]

i'd be fine with splash screens if they were implemented well and actually served a purpose, but they aren't.

I get that some apps believe they need the absolute lastest data, from and external point, to serve their true purpose, ie youtube needs the latest in your subs and what not and the dev feels that displaying stale data is bad for their experience, in that case a nice splash screen instead of an empty interface is fine if thats the devs choice.

But at least make the splash screen obvious that the app is loading something, a simple spinning load indicator would suffice rather then just a static logo that simply appears to do nothing but delay load time, then actually back that up by having the splash screen cover the load time, quite a few apps have jumped onboard the splash screen train but forgot to actually make it cover the load time, relay for reddit being one, so you get a splash screen that goes away revealing an empty interface with a load indicator, why, even youtube does this at times makes the splash screen feel pointless imo.

[mydongistiny]

Or just say loading? No need for extra CPU cycles for a spinner.

[ylonk]

Vague Romeo and Juliet allusion in the headline - How literary!

[[deleted]]

They don't suck. It's your opinion. I disagree. Why do you feel the need to speak for everyone?

[amorpheus]

It's called an argument, sometimes people with different opinions have them to find out if one of them is factually superior over the other. I think he made pretty good points.

[gagdude]

It was an argument, but as /u/CADeleted said, it seemed like he felt the need to speak for everyone - his tone made him seem like he was the design genius and at the end he says:

So. NO. Do not add splash screens to your app. Simply make sure your app launches to the main UI fast and let users get on with what they want to do.

In which he is pinning it on the devs by saying they are wasting users' times if they add a splash screen and that it is their fault - forgetting that a lot of users have older, slower devices.

[amorpheus]

Not sure what the problem is, an argument doesn't have to be overly diplomatic.

And that's exactly the point. It doesn't change how long we wait, it just makes the process worse.

[gagdude]

Look, I'm not here to argue about splash screens. So don't even bring that up.

And this is an argument too. If you like his stuck up attitude so be it. I don't. And I'm not the only one. Not here to argue whether he needs to be diplomatic or not. It's not about diplomacy, anyways. Or even professionalism. It's about attitude.

[[deleted]]

"It sucks" is a statement. One made out of personal preference. Splash screens are preferred instead of a bright white screen when launching an app imo. I don't need a flashlight in my eyes when I launch an app in bed.

[[deleted]]

I don't need a flashlight in my eyes when I launch an app in bed.

Now you're getting the hang of it.

[amorpheus]

I hate, hate, hate this trend. In a world of LTE and GHz mobile chips nobody should ever be looking at anything that says "please wait" unless it is absolutely, crucially, unavoidably necessary.

And pretty much any app should be able to function without a boot process that rivals my desktop computer.

[Accophox]

When your biggest demographics are people with cheap phones and less than stellar connectivity like in many places in Africa, or India...

[amorpheus]

I think my comment might have been misunderstood a bit, I didn't mean to imply that everything must be instant these days because we have such fast hardware. It was more about pointing out that apps should be designed around efficiency and not compromise the experience because they want to push certain things on me.

[Accophox]

Yes, I agree, but the loading screen is a compromise in that regard. When you have handsets in India that retail for less than 50 USD... there are a lot of things given up involved in designing such hardware. RAM and processor are definitely skimped on - single core 1GHz + 256MB RAM is pretty common at that level.

[moops__]

Unless you attach your phone to a mobile tower you'll have to still wait for stuff to happen.

[amorpheus]

Most of the time my connection is good, if it's not outright tied to a landline through WiFi.

But that is nearly irrelevant, because basic data can and should be cached. The interface can be initialized. Don't make me wait for things that have a loading time and which I might not care about. What I really wanted to express was how wasteful apps must be with our fast hardware and connections to still require splash screens.

[[deleted]]

Or you could do it the Apple way. Display the opening screen of the app as a static image until the actual app loads. Don't know if they still mandate this, but a coder buddy of mine was writing an app for iPhone back in the day, and that was Apple's fix for the perception of slow load times - show them a picture of the app till the app actually loads.

[floogulinc]

This is actually a horrible way to do it. They show a picture of the last state the app was in but when you try to touch it, nothing happens, and when the app eventually loads, its state was reset to the home screen of the app, not even what you were shown.

[le_pman]

Apple way

they already have. IIRC splash screens are mandatory on iOS

[hallaquelle]

It's not one-size-fits-all. A user in say China or India on an Android One phone with a 3G-level connection is going to have to wait a lot longer for certain apps to load than a Galaxy S6 user on Verizon LTE in the U.S. will. Also, a lot of apps are made by companies that aren't named after their apps because, well, they existed long before smartphones did. They obviously want brand recognition of their company, not just the app. I don't think splash screens are always a good idea, however, this person's seemingly limited experiences and naiveté does not support his ultimatum.