Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Developers, Educators, and Learners (Wiley and SAS Business Series)

by Scott McQuiggan

With the many technological advances of mobile devices, offering more opportunities for direct manipulation to control functions is a key differentiator. Think about interacting with a map: using pinch to zoom and swiping to move the center are much more intuitive and logical maneuvers than using the + or – buttons and arrows in the corner of the screen to do the same functions. Further, in educational settings, direct manipulation increases engagement and understanding for students.16 It's been shown that interacting with content using pinching to zoom results in kids having a better understanding of the scale of the universe (such as the size of the sun compared to the Earth, and the size of a planet compared to a particle) than they did by traditional methods of teaching.17 Taking advantage of the functionality that allows users to directly manipulate objects on screen gives them a deeper learning experience, and should be employed wherever possible within an app. It also offers an opportunity to provide feedback while executing a command, like dragging and dropping a file to its storage location, that the command is successful.18