Brendan Jones
Aug 28, 2017 · 1 min read

“It can mask the true primary action of a screen if not used judiciously. Take Gmail, whose floating action button makes little sense when you consider that most people prefer to read emails on the go and can compose a reply within the opened email itself, making the button almost obsolete.”

A thousand times this. You have to be pretty damn certain of how people use your app to make one primary action button. The action you think is the primary one isn’t necessarily the one all users do.

Whatsapp is a good example. I use the search function far more often than I create a new conversation, yet it’s the new conversation action that gets the FAB. Even if it was my most common action, I still think it’s weird to have all controls at the top except for one. There’s almost always room for all actions on the top menu, so why make people think and go searching for the one separate action?

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    Brendan Jones

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