Undo - Reloaded

Undo

"It would be quite useful to permit users to 'take back' at least the immediately preceding command (by issuing some special 'undo' command).“

Lance A. Miller and John C. Thomas first mentioned the need of an undo command in IBMs research report "Behavioral Issues in the Use of Interactive Systems" in 1976. Later programmers at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) assigned the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Z to the undo command and thus usher it into nearly every piece of software.

As Internet artist Olia Lialina states, it is a fundamental "right", given as a "gift from developers to the users". Undo therefore became an essential element of graphical user interface and one of the most important Human Interface Design Principles, called „forgiveness“. It gives users the power to recover content and the freedom to try new actions, confident of their ability to reverse that action - to undo it - if the result is not what was intended.

Todays new modes of interaction ignore the many important lessons of classic interface design, including the power of „undo“ and it too has disappeared from the current guidelines. The topic is up to date than ever before - In the article „How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name“, published in November 2015 the former Apple designer Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini criticize the move toward visual simplicity and elegance at the expense of discoverability, feedback and recovery. Companies as Apple rather prefer a clean elegant Design over clear understanding and usability. Thus the undo function went out from mobile devices and is no longer universal implemented. (Apple at least put undo back in, as the mainly unknown gesture of violently shaking the phone or tablet.)

The following Undo Guidelines presents unsiversal options and possibilities, bringing back the fundamental principle of Undo on mobile devices.

Keyboard

Options to incorporate the undo function direcly into the mobile keyboard.

Undo Button


Tap the Undo Button integrated in the keyboard in-between the shift-key and z-key.

Mechanic: Touch
One-finger press, lift

(implimented with release of Apple IOS 9, in Septemper 2016: Apple replaced Cut/Copy functions on the keyboard with an Undo/Redo)

Undo Icon


Tap the Undo icon, located on the left side of the row over the keypad.

Mechanic: Touch
One-finger press, lift

Pop-up Menu

Hold the Z-key until the pop-up menu apears and chose the Undo icon.


Mechanic: Long press
One-finger press, wait, lift

Hold Z


Hold the Z-key for a while, till the undo command is activated and the device judders.

Mechanic: Hold
One-finger press,wait for a moment, lift

external Undo Button

It's 2016. Can you believe there is still no undo (Ctrl-Z) when inputting on a touchscreen? Fortunately, the Undo-Button can handle this.
It brings the key features of undo, as easy as on desktop.

The programmers at the Xerox PARC assigned the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Z, as the soon all known original form to activate the undo command. It never was implemented to mobile devices - till now.

The external Undo-Button is a mini two-key keyboard you can easily connect via cable or bluetooth directly to your smartphone, dedicated solely to the undo command. It makes Ctrl+Z undoing finally possible on smartphones, passing this "elemental right" back to the user.

External Undo-Button for mobile devices

The button is directly connectable to the phone

Gesture

Touch gestures become steadily more important with the ongoing success of touch screen devices. Using gestures gives people a close personal connection to their devices and enhances their sense of direct manipulation of onscreen objects. Compared to traditional user interfaces, gestures have the potential to lower cognitive load and the need for visual attention.

Circle-Gesture

Touch gesture - shape stroke

Mechanic: Draw an open circle, anticlockwise.

Z-Gesture

Touch gesture - letter stroke

Mechanic: Draw a Z with your finder.

Scribble-Gesture

Touche gesture - shape stroke

Mechanic: Swipe over the display with your finger, as if you scribble.

Shake

Motion gesture

Mechanic: Shake the device heavily.

(implimented with release of Apple IOS 3, in June 2009)

Voice input

Nowadays everyone with a smartphone is familiar with Siri, Cortana and Google Now as a natural way to search, send messages, or surf the web.

Activate the undo command easily through the voice input just saying "undo", "papperlapapp" or "oops".

Say "undo", "papperlapapp" or "oops"
into the microphone

Undo App

Undo - Easy, fast and ubiquitous

The Undo App allows the undo command easily on mobile devices.
The App integrates an omnipresent undo button to your device. The "Floating Bubble" automatically appears on the screen and affords to undo an action, if needed. Wheather when typing a message, searching on google or adding notes to the diary - just press the button.

The Undo App embodies the following options:

  • easy and fast undo
  • ubiquitous notification, automatically poping up when undo option is given

(Android app "Inputting+" - published in Dezember 2015 - brings some key features, including undo, redo, and find to mobile devices.)

Omnipresent Undo Floating Bubble for universal Undo.