Dear Murray,
Thank you for your comments. The thing that surprised me most is that
you said you don't see a horizontal scroll bar on the long equation.
On my laptop in chrome, firefox, or safari I see the scrollbar
(when I make it narrow, like on a phone), so I assumed smart phones
would do the same.
I took the weekend to think about about it, and I am going to stick
with the long equations. I'll explain my reasoning.
The main point is that you potentially lose a lot of information
if you rearrange the equation, or at least it makes it a lot
harder for the reader to parse. This is particularly bad when
the equation is already multi-line.
So I thought more about the usability issue and the points made
in the article you referenced. I don't think the situation of a
long equation running off the page is comparable to site navigation
that uses a sideways swipe. I address the three recommendations
from that article: 1. Swiping is not primary navigation: it is just
to look at one equation, and is comparable to moving around a large
image to see the details. 2. Users do not have to guess how much
content is left: the swipe it just to see the rest of that specific
equation. 3. There is an obvious visual clue: you see the equation
running off the edge of the screen.
I realize that 3rd point would be stronger if there was also a
visible horizontal scroll bar.
My use case is math research papers and textbooks. The alternative
is PDF, which is terrible on a smart phone, and I am okay with
there being a small learning curve for the user to learn how to
navigate the long equations.
Regards,
David
On Sat, 6 Feb 2016, Murray wrote:
> David
> I visited your page on iPad and thought I would share the experience.
>
> I was first in landscape mode and your wide equation spilled off the screen. A
> horizontal swipe to the left moved the whole #content div to the left, so I could see
> the whole thing.
>
> Then I changed to portrait mode. The right hand part of the equation disappeared and
> swiping the page (not the equation) didn't do anything.
>
> [equation.PNG]