Description

We observed (within our family) that our users don't understand why tapping/clicking on a photo thumbnail sometimes doesn't open the photo in detail view.

Turned out that they e.g. they fat-fingered their way onto the faint selection circle in the lower-right corner once and then couldn't recover from there.

The confusing part here, I argue, is actually that the semantics of the interaction change: Clicking a thumbnail picture to open the detail view is great UX. It is currently modal input, and the mode changes after the first selection has been made. Once 1 selection has been made, all subsequent thumbnail interactions change to "select this, too".

Proposed Solution

Removing the modality would be an improvement:

1. Always open the details when clicking on the thumbnail.
2. Always select a picture when clicking the circle in the corner.

Alternatives considered

• Take this a step further: with this change, clicking anywhere on the whole card could open the detail view.
• Toggling a dedicated 'selection mode'. Switch to "Edit" or "Select" mode, then interacting with the thumbnail does the appropriate thing depending on the mode. In regular mode, show the detail. In select mode, select. Downside: checking out picture details before selecting becomes weird.

Illustration

This drawing shows how the touch targets change depending on the mode: in default mode, only the circle is a selection toggle; afterwards, in selection mode, everything is.