Abstract English

The focus of my work is the question how to better use tablet computers, like the iPad, for professional Tasks. It stands out that the iPad is always being compared to classic computers, yet it doesn’t fully replace them. The possibilities for pro users are often quite limited. There are many apps for drawing, sketching, and note-taking, but solutions for other use cases seem to fall short. On the other hand, tablet computers offer a lot of benefits and computing power. For that reason I worked on how we can improve the problems that hinder professional applications to be used on the iPad.
A system-wide menu is a holistic solution to this problem. It provides users a consistent and discoverable way to use all the functions of an app. Menus are used since the beginning of desktop computers to even make complex pro apps with many windows, views and actions accessible. My concept shows how this could look like on the iPad, without breaking the conventions of touch-devices. With a main menu apps will not only be more accessible to everyone, but also open up possibilities for more complex pro apps!

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Definitions/Terminology*
3. Tablet Computer History*
4. Main Menu History*
5. Main Menu Examples*
6. State of the Art*
7. iPadOS Pro App Examples*
8. Press and Media Discourse*
9. The iPad Menu Concept
10. Conclusion & Future Work*
11. Appendix*

* All chapters can be found in the attached PDF.

Introduction

Almost a decade after the introduction of the iPad people still struggle to replace computers with tablets for professional tasks (pro tasks). Especially if you want to do more professional work rather than “just” browsing the web, answering emails or reading books. “In fact, when it actually comes to pro use, the phrase ‘it’s still limited’ is kind of a recurring theme with the iPad.”¹ Even though tablets gained a lot of interest from users and developers, it never felt like they reached their full potential. Using my iPad everyday I always ask myself: Why is it so hard to do actual work on the iPad? And where are all these professional apps besides the overloaded drawing and note taking market?

Big companies like Adobe, Autodesk or Apple itself struggle to bring their pro software to tablets. This fall Adobe showed us, with the latest release of the “real” Photoshop, how hard it can be to create extensive pro apps for tablets.² Users were really disappointed of the few features that actually made it into the release.³ Just like Photoshop, apps often end up having a very limited feature-set compared to their desktop counterparts. In some cases this can be the right approach to focus on specific benefits. Developers can use the benefits of the hardware and don’t overload the interface on the significant smaller screens. With the current processing power, tablets can outperform laptops and are often available in bigger sizes, like the 12-inch iPad Pro. So the screen size and power shouldn’t be the main concern.

If there are so many struggles why do we use tablets in the first place? By their nature of design, tablet computers have a strong mobility advantage. As Apple showcased in their “Life On iPad” Ad⁴, tablets are almost immediately ready to go. No need to disconnect a power supply or folding a heavy laptop. You can even hold it in your hands while walking or standing in the subway. This way people can work wherever they want. Let it be sketching out ideas on a park bench, editing videos in a comfortable cafe chair or updating a website lying on the grass. This kind of portability allows users to work on places they enjoy working at.

As Federico Viticci says in the Stacktrace Podcast⁵:

“I think enjoyment and comfort are a kind of productivity. […] Life is too short to do things that you don’t enjoy […].”

Together with the portability, iPads in particular are very powerful as well. The latest 11-inch iPad Pro even beats the Mac Pro in a Single-Core-Benchmark-Test.⁶ All of this running on a battery so good, that you can almost forget that you have to charge the device. Other hardware features like cellular connection, GPS, accelerometer, cameras or the Apple Pencil allow you to do things that aren’t possible in that way with classic computers.

The biggest part of the problem are their operating systems and corresponding software. Microsoft follows the approach to almost identically use their desktop interface on touch devices. Albeit this allows to run any application on the go, it has a lot of problems as the different input style requires certain optimizations that the software misses out. Apple for a very long time had the path-dependency of their smartphone OS. Over numerous releases they tried to improve iOS for the iPad bringing back some kind of file management, multiple windows and, and shortcuts; just to name a few things. Still they have a reputation of not being a true pro device. Google doesn’t even produce tablets anymore and seem to slowly but steadily abandon their tablet OS. Android never really had the truly optimized tablet experience though, as a lot of apps just stretched their interfaces to the bigger screens.

At the center of my thesis is the question of how to improve the problems that hinder professional use of tablet computers. As the operating systems differ a lot in the way they handle system actions, I concentrated my concept on iPadOS 13.

During research and testing I noticed that many problems are found on the design of certain applications. Also, due to ever changing API’s or new design-standards, problems can often be boiled down to developers, or even Apple, not using the latest ways-to-go. If you dive deeper into pro-workflows, the operating system itself suffers from highly fragmented problems in pretty much any area. These issues seem small-sized by themselves, but lead to a bad experience on the whole. But maybe there is a way to tackle these issues in a holistic way. Traditional computers accommodate the complexity of pro software using an always accessible menu. This led me to the following questions:

Why is such a long lasting concept not brought to touch devices? Is a Main Menu feasible on them as well? Does it solve current struggles that pro users face? And can mainstream users also benefit from a menu?

The first part of this book concentrates on the origins of tablets and menus, how they came to live and what were the insights reached in the design phase. After the historic classification I will outline the current state of the art of iPadOS, followed by an overview of press and media discourse on iPad as a pro device. The second part is all about my iPad Main Menu concept. Detailing different ways to design such a menu for touch input. In the conclusion of this book I will outline some conductive thoughts for further improvements for the rest of the OS.

The Final Concept

As described earlier, I decided to show the menu via a dedicated button in the dock. Optionally, the user can use a 3-finger-tap to show the menu in a faster way. If multiple apps are visible in split view or slide over, the menu shows an app-selection on the top of the menu. This selection lists all currently open apps in the same vertical layout. It is not a history of the last used apps, but rather a mapping of the visible apps on screen. The app where the user currently writes text in or last interacted with will be the selected app in the menu. Alternatively, the location of the 3-finger-tap selects the app. There will always only one instance of the menu visible. The user can switch to one of the other currently open apps at any time using the app-switcher or 3-finger-tap of on of the other apps.

To better highlight which app is currently in focus the concept introduces a window-highlight-system similar to the Mac. Apps these days use tint-colors to colorize their UI’s. This coloring will be used to determine which app is selected for the menu. The selected app will stay shaded and every other visible app will be dimmed and de-colorized. This way the user can quickly see which app menu is active without reading the name on the top.

The menu itself always uses the full height of the display to ensure the highest consistency as it is layouted from top to bottom. The copy- and undo-bar will be merged into the menu and its actions stay always at the top of it. Below these actions are all app-related menus. Just like on macOS these menus follow a certain naming- and sorting-pattern, but still can be customized for the apps needs. On the bottom will be a menu to directly execute specialized shortcuts, followed by a “New Features” (added in the latest update) and “App Help” buttons. The latter menu-actions either link to the App Store or can be changed by developers to show their custom content. To search menu-actions the user just needs to tap on the search bar or start typing with an external keyboard already connected to the iPad.

When selecting one of the menus of the first level, a second column opens up showing all the actions of the corresponding menu. When the user selects another sub-menu the right column navigates one level deeper, in a classic iOS drill-down-navigation style, following the Split View behavior. This allows the user to quickly switch to other menus or even switch the app while navigating the sub-menus. On the other hand, it allows users to touch and straight away drag the finger over the menus to quickly scan through them and even execute actions in a macOS manner. A back button in the navigation bar allows users to reverse one navigation-step if they are seeking another action.
The menu automatically hides after selecting a menu action or tapping outside the overlay.