I just impulsively bought some apps due to it’s crazy discount (later i know that some of them are part of Because We May movement) days ago. One of the app i bought was a game called “Samurai II: Vengeance“. I don’t want to review the game on this post (although the game is a quite a thing tho, i really love the uniqueness of the graphics) but later on i realized one thing:

Tapping (virtual button) doesn’t feel natural.

Samurai 2 control interface

As you may see on the picture, the game is using the metaphor of console’s gamepad. There are one navigation control and three action controls. To beat the enemy, i have to tap the (virtual) action buttons again and again. Heck it doesn’t feel really good. Later after some amount of tappings, my thumb felt tired and weirdly exhausted. Different thing happened when i crazily spent my days to finish infinite blade 2. Moving and dodging the character didn’t feel really tired when the gesture used was swiping.

These two experiences got me thinking:

  1. Swiping gesture feels really natural. (So does pinching)
  2. However, tapping doesn’t feel really natural. To be precise, At some amount of taps, tapping become exhausting.

Now i start to realize the value of Twitter’s pull to refresh UI and the so-called clear revolutionary UI.