Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Panorama? Pivot? What's the diff? Here's a Boss Eyed View of the two...

Canadian Mobile Developers' Blog - Like a Boss! Understanding the Difference between Panorama and Pivot in Windows Phone

"One of the great features of Windows Phone is the natural feel of the left-to-right (or right-to-left) scrolling of apps and hubs. There’s a good reason for this flow – the Windows Phone team looked into the behaviour of how users interact with the phone and figured out that the anatomy of the hand is such that its actually easier to scroll left and right vs. up and down (true story!).

To that end, the Windows Phone SDK contains two major controls that allow you to take advantage of the left/right interaction: Panorama and Pivot.

Panorama Control

The Panorama control is, as you might guess from its name, expansive in nature. Panorama is a UI asset that is meant to draw the user into the app and literally immerse him/herself in the experience you have implemented.

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Pivot Control

If you were to look at the Pivot and Panorama controls side by side and tell me that they are basically the same thing, just looking a little different, I wouldn’t blame you. The differences to the user are fairly subtle, but to you as a developer/designer and to the experience your user has with your app (whether or not they realize it), those differences are both significant and ultimately determinant to the success of your app in many cases.

We have already discussed Panorama and its mission: Artful, Expansive, Immersive; basically it’s a canvas and you are the artist. The Pivot control shares the left/right behaviour of Panorama but the common experience to the two controls really ends there. The Pivot control is a deeper experience and meant to be data-driven.

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Not that I need this or anything... Because, well I know the difference between the two of these... um... well... err... Okay, now I do at least. :P

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