this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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So i just bought Asus rog phone 6d and im extremely bothered by the lack of the back ,home and whatewer is the 3 one called buttons on the news androids. Is this something you all got used to with time or does this still bother you( IT really fells much less intuitive compared to the old 3 buttons ,alghtough preferably i would love to have both since the back gesture seems kinda usefull )?

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I think there's a setting to bring back the buttons, if you want that.

Settings -> System -> Gestures -> System navigation

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Yeah this is what I do. I tried gestures but I really prefer the buttons.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

There's two of us! Really the minority in this thread. For me there was no guide so i was extremely confused at first. Then I found it interfered with one of my most used apps that featured similar gestures so I turned it off and never went back.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I'm still using buttons too. I never understood why people would want universal gestures for back and home while using apps that are also controlled by gestures. Just give me the dedicated buttons.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

My phone offers gestures but not by default and I've got zero interest. I'm really glad it's an option and I hate all the companies that think they know better than all their users and force their visions on them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, totally this! Also, I'm just super uncoordinated and I was constantly swiping in slightly the wrong direction so it never did what I wanted it to do. You know where you stand with a button πŸ˜†

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just stick with the gestures for a week or so. You'll get used to it. Wouldn't want to go back to the button row anymore.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I've tried, it's not for me, I'm always accidentally swiping.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Oh my God, thank you. I hate the gestures. I'm constantly going back when I'm just trying to scroll or turn pages

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Just upgraded my phone and found this setting myself. Thank god you can change it back to the 3 buttons.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Definitely try gestures.

Being able to "go back" from a gentle swipe at any height is a blessing for the small hand. The rest of options are really, really intuitive.

Unless you have some mobility issues, you'll never come back after a week.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i've no mobility issues, but i can't stand that back gesture. it interferes with the ability to open drawers; and i can't spam it quickly to get out of a "deep" page in an app

gestures do have pros (for instance, the ability to hold and scroll through recents) but the back gesture just seems straight up worse to me

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (13 children)

it interferes with the ability to open drawers

It's funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven't come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn't really "officially" recommended?

Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn't that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn't interfere with the system gestures

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

it frequently misfires when I don't want it to and fails to fire when I do. I used it for a couple of months and then went back to buttons after getting frustrated.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure you can still enable 3 button navigation in settings. I still use it

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Took me awhile to get used to gesture, but can't go back now. The only thing that still bothers me is the old UX of the slide out side menus was clearly overlooked with gesture navigation and is really awkward.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I'll never forget the day I realized my reddit app (Relay for Reddit) had a drawer that pulled out by just sliding your finger to the right from anywhere on the screen. As long as you didn't slide from the left edge, it pulled the drawer out. Why we don't make that the default is beyond me.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

I had that for about half an hour, but I wouldn't want to switch back. Gestures all the time

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's possible to adjust it so you have three little buttons but you can also use gestures from those buttons. Not the sides. I used to use that setup for a long time but know I'm just using the regular gestures for now. By the way I'm on a Samsung Galaxy S20.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

These settings are samsung specific. Samsung had optional gesture navigation before it was in android. Different gestures though (the 3 button swipe from the bottom option). So nowadays you can choose between the old style samsung gestures, the android gestures and toggle the button row on or off on samsung phones.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

initially I didn't like the gesture controls but they really are better than having buttons wasting space and burning in the screen

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Can't agree. I thought they sucked. I gave it two weeks but it just felt worse to me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is burn-in really an issue? I've never noticed it on any of my OLED devices

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

I'm so used to gestures I can barely use a phone with button navigation. When I have to help my parents/grandparents with their smartphones I take longer just because they use buttons lol.

Also the 3 button navigation is not gone afaik. All OEMs I've used have it buried in the settings somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I used a phone without gestures the other day and had such a hard time with it, it was crazy how unintuitive the buttons felt in comparison to the gestures!

The simple fact is, neither is actually all that intuitive, they're learned, but gestures definitely get to be very convenient and a much quicker form of navigation.

I would definitely not want to go back.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's funny, if you swap gestures with buttons in your post, I'd agree 100% lol

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

I really wanted to like gestures. I used them for over a year.
Even after all that, switching back bottom navigation immediately felt right.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I loved Android's 3 button nav for years but after like a week of using gestures I couldn't go back. Once I got the hang of it, it was way more fluid feeling to use.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Nah, I love gestures. It's so quick to go back just by swiping left or right.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I like both but use gestures because I don't want to lose screen space on the bottom. I like full screen apps

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Haven't used the 3 buttons navigation since 2016 or 2017

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

gesture navigation is fine for me. but i more want stacking recent tasks back

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know about your phone, but there is probably a setting to enable button navigation.

However, I was in similar situation when I bought my phone, I even enabled the buttons at first. Then I thought to try gesture navigation for sometime, and now I love it. It's much easier and faster in most cases.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I prefer gestures. But if you like buttons just go to settings and turn them on.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nah, I jumped to gestures the first chance I did. 3 button navigation is old school, and on large screen devices, it's not good. Gestures have a larger surface area for activation and require less precise input to active. I also use one-handed mode+ of samsung, so I have the entire 3 sides of the screen to activate as desired. They are just that much intuitive and convenient for me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Gesture all the way

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Try gestures. They get easy after a time. Pro tip: to open hamburger menus tap and hold left edge of screen for 0.5s and pull it out to the right. Works every time and no accidental back swipes.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Had the same initial reaction to Pixel. But its really grown on me. The swipe to go back is awesome. Having said that, there is a setting to get the buttons back, in case this doesn't grow on you

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I really miss the 2 button navigation bar. using the pill to switch between apps felt intuitive. however I don't think I could go back after using gestures.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

For me it's the opposite now. My boyfriend still uses the 3 bottom buttons and I am so used to gestures by now that whenever I use his phone I am always a little thrown off. To me it just feels more intuitive to swipe rather than to go to the bottom of the screen to tap a button.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's just too easy to accidentally swipe back. A massive massive flaw in my opinion. The amount of times I catch my self entering a screen scrolling vertically and then accidentally exiting only to lose my place when I return.

Having said that the speed of doing actions has increased for me. It's just the accuracy has decreased at the same time.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Just changed back to buttons thanks to a comment on this post. I had been using gestures since I got my new Pixel mid-July (since my carrier stopped supporting the 3a and gave me a 6a for $50). Never got used to it, constantly kept accidentally swiping to go back while doing other things.

This isn't quite as good as the 3a, which had buttons for back and home, but swipe up for the app switcher, but it's definitely better than 100% gestures

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I very quickly got used to the gesture controls, and now appreciate the extra screen space.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fuck gestures! And people, can't you understand other people like buttons instead of gestures? If you don't have an answer to what OP asked, why bother to "give advice"?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

You're looking for settings --> navigation bar

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Past two phones I've had (Galaxy Z fold 3 and OnePlus 7 Pro) I've had the option for gestures or buttons.

I always pick gestures, I get more screen real estate and the gestures feel good and intuitive.

If you don't like them, change it, that's the benefit of Android, you can do what you want.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not to mention how often the on screen navigation buttons would just burn in. There'd be a permanent outline where they normally are if you were to view any full screen media.

Definitely made sure to enable gesture navigation on my current phone and that hasn't been a problem.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I switched to "drag up" nav bar as soon as OLED and burn-in became a thing. So technically I was already "gesturing" before gestures were integrated :3

Once proper gestures came in, after the initial learning period, I never looked back!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Just use the standard navigation bar

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I love the gestures themselves. I hate that they "try" to follow device orientation.

It's a guesswork if the screen is rotated or if the media itself is just so. Also i've had multiple cases where the gesturebar is on the portrait bottom but the gestures are on the landscape.

Oneplus did it correct when they had their own gestures. The gestures were always on the same spot regardless of the device orientation. You always knew where they were. Also i think they worked in fullscreen apps without first swiping the gesture bar out.

edit: just wanted to add that i'm on android 12, i don't know if they are less finicky now.

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