Hey folks,

 I've been working on some new interactions and was looking for a little feedback on this one.  It's a "draggable" list like the ones used throughout the iPhone, and although it isn't perfect, the interaction is about as close as I can get to the real thing.

I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on how to improve the simulation, or if it even makes sense :).  See here: http://www.acleandesign.com/m/AxureCarousel/Home.html. Click the images in the center to make it work.

[self plug alert]   I also wrote up how this was made and posted the .rp file at: http://www.acleandesign.com/2008/09/click-and-drag-simulation-in-axure [/self plug alert]

Hey Loren,

why didn't you post this message under your original post:
http://axure.com/cs/forums/thread/3288.aspx

???

Hi Loren!

That's damn cool. The only suggestion I'd have is that instead of clicking on the image to activate the drag region, maybe an OnMouseOver instead? In a prototype test, people wouldn't click and release to drag, they'd just hold it down.

If OnMouseOver of a dragable object two arrows were to appear on top of it on either side, OnMouseOver there would kick off the drag event. You'd probably have to set this up as a custom widget or something to make it easily repeatable.

I *really* like how you've faked the animation. : )

F.

Thanks Fred :)   You're right about the user test, I've already had people (even Axure users!) show me that the "drag behavior on this thing is broken".  I tried your solution and it's pretty slick, but the user loses the ability to decide when to initiate these interactions, and ends up accidentally doing it.  Basically, neither way is perfect.. Axure isn't ready for user testing of click-and-drag behavior.  In Version 2 of the library, I simply tagged the ones using this behavior as "beta".. best we can do right now, I think.

Hi Loren,

This thread caught my eye, as I'm new to Axure and interested in simulating this type of functionality. A quick background: I'm a user experience designer that works mainly on mobile designs; a lot of my recent work have been for touch screen phones such as the iPhone and Android (G1). I create mid-fidelity mockups in Visio, usually describing the behavior in an accompanying document. This is where I saw an opportunity for Axure: the specification, mockups, and prototype are all handled by one program.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble ramping up in Axure, as most of the application is catered to web pages. To truly simulate a touch screen mobile device, I need the drag behavior to scroll a screen, much like your carousel. (Actually, even non-touch screens will be very much like a filmstrip where the user can see only a given amount of "strip").

I hope that support for mobile screens and their interaction styles are expanded further in Axure 5.5 beta and beyond. It's the one killer feature that holds me back from buying site licenses for our team.

Thanks for the tutorial, I've bookmarked for later as I'm sure I'll use it somewhere.