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To the right, you'll see an in-progress version of the iPhone companion application to our cross-platform desktop application Scorecard. It's a "companion app" because it relies on the desktop app for the actual statistics. The iPhone app will simply let you keep your stats while you're playing golf and will sync them back to the desktop app when you return home.

Don't mind some of the little things (like the "Par 5" line at the bottom or the inverted shading in the fairway) - this post is about the stupid slider we've currently got in the "First Putt" position.

The "First Putt" in the Scorecard system is a measure - in feet or meters - of your first putt. As such, we need to keep an integer value that covers a range of 1 (or 0) to roughly 100. There aren't many greens where you'll face 100+ foot putt, but there are plenty where you can face a putt of 75+ feet. So 100 is just a good cutoff point.

A slider is the natural choice but, with 100 values in roughly 80 pixels, it's virtually impossible to use. In fact, there are some numbers that are simply unattainable (like "2"). A twitch of the finger sends the value from 5 to 35.

We'd put a normal text field there and pop up the standard keyboard, but that thing takes up half the screen and the rest of the interface works without that monstrosity, so we'd rather not do that. We could put one or two drop-down menus, but they too pop up big dials that take up half the screen.

As of right now, we have only three ideas, but we're not sure how they'll work in practice.

Idea 1: Accelerated +/- Buttons
If XX is the actual value, and (-) and (+) are the minus and plus buttons similar to the blue ones above, then this idea essentially copies the layout of the "Score," "Putts," and "Penalties" fields into the "First Putt" field - (-) XX (+) - but adds "acceleration" to the buttons. In other words, if you start at 0 and hold your finger down on the + button, you'll get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 80, 90. It'd feel similar to "key repeat" on your desktop, with acceleration. The downside is that "accelerated" buttons aren't standard, so most users will probably not know of this and will find it frustrating to tap the + button 35 times for a 35-foot putt.

My friend Josh suggested "tapping fast" to accelerate. My gut reaction is that people will still tap and changing the behavior and/or look of a fairly standard element might not be a wise idea. It might just confuse everyone.

Idea 2: Dual +/- Buttons
Similar in layout to the standard +/- buttons, this idea includes a second "-" and "+" button that jump by tens. The layout would look something like (<) (-) XX (+) (>). This breaks up the layout consistency but accomplishes a goal. Even starting from 0 a distance like 65 would only be 11 clicks away, and more common distances like 32 would only be five. But what symbols do we use for the buttons that add or subtract 10? Do we use < and >? Will these extra buttons fit?

Idea 3: Tilt
I briefly flirted with the idea of "tilting" the iPhone/iPod Touch to roughly set the range, then using +/- buttons to fine tune it (i.e. tilt it to 36, then hit - a few times to get to 33, the actual value), but the problem with this is obvious: when do you stop taking a "tilt" reading and "freeze" the number so that you can fine-tune it with the buttons?

I'm not certain which way we'll go - one of the above versions, a permutation of the above, or an entirely different direction. But I do welcome any thoughts you might have. What would you do if given the chance?

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