wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: 360Cities.net
Richard Crowest 2010-Feb-12 15:12:00
Pat Swovellin wrote:
> Bryant's point isn't the hand cursor, his point is the way the pano is
> controlled and Google's way is *not* intuitive. I spoke to someone
> yesterday who was asked to submit a template for panos for a large
> real
> estate firm and he showed it to them with the correct control method
> (i.e., what everyone on the planet except Google uses) and they said
> "his way was much better" but could he do it like Google because
> that's
> what people expect.
I've had a very similar experience recently. A virtual tour we'd
produced was sent out to an accessibility and usability consultant for
testing, and they said that the controls were "non-standard" as they
didn't work the same way as Google Street View! That's 16 years of
QTVR wiped out in an instant, then.
What's even more maddening is that there's a 4-way button controller
at the top of Street View panoramas, which works in the "standard"
"pan-the-camera" way, i.e. click on the right button to look to the
right (so the panorama swings to the left in the viewport). It's
laughable. Plus I very much dislike the fact that you can't create a
continuous, uninterrupted movement with the drag model as you can with
the pan-the-camera model.
The one exception I find is on the iPhone, where it does feel much
more natural to drag the image than control a virtual camera.
Incidentally, as well as pointing out the inconsistency of Google's
interface, we were able to kill the argument by pointing out that the
panorama viewer we had spent a long time integrating into the tour
(Flash Panorama Player) doesn't offer a "drag-the-image" option, and
we'd have to switch to krpano and redo all the coding if they really
wanted to include it...
You can view the tour in question here: http://www.corvidae.co.uk/panoramas/dunham/files/home.html
(It's rather high-bandwidth as it's really a prototype pre
optimisation for the web).
Best,
Richard
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