Check boxes under 'Locking and unlocking' are not touch friendly - too small on a phone, but also inconsistent with other (sliding) switches

[Daniel van Vugt]

Check boxes under 'Locking and unlocking' are not touch friendly - too small on a phone, but also inconsistent with other (sliding) switches like 'Stats on welcome screen'

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dinamic (dinamic6661)]

also in System Settings / Sound

half are on/off toggles and half are check boxes

what is the difference between a check box and a toggle?
they seem to do the same thing

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yeah they should all look the same.

One big difference is that on my BQ phone a tick box is really too small for many people to see.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

This is a combination of two toolkit bugs. First, tapping anywhere on their label should check/uncheck them, making the target area much bigger. And second, checkboxes are supposed to be to the left of their labels, making them more obviously distinct from switches.

Soon app design guidelines will be published that make it clearer when to use a checkbox vs. a switch. The relevant text from my draft is:
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Use a checkbox for an option that is most easily understood as an instruction from the user to the system (for example, “Show password” or “Notify me when a contact comes online”), or a property that is or isn’t applied to something (for example, “Bold” or “Italic”). Otherwise use:
• a switch, if it is a mode or something else best understood as being on/off (for example, “Do Not Disturb” or “Call waiting”); or
• a pair of radio buttons, if there is space to show labels for both options at once; or
• a radio menu.
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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I agree bug 1333228 is a basic error. All toolkits should do that already.

Unfortunately that doesn't resolve the two issues raised in this bug report:
  (a) The distinction between a checkbox and switch is still too vague and they should be the same thing; and
  (b) Even fixing bug 1333228 does not resolve the issue here that a tick in a checkbox is too small to see on a phone (e.g. krillin) and should either never be used there, or need to be enlarged.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

As far as I can tell, you have now raised three distinct issues.

x. “Check boxes … are not touch friendly - too small on a phone”: that would and should be solved by fixing bug 1333228, which is why I marked it as a duplicate.

a. “Check boxes … are … also inconsistent with other (sliding) switches” / “The distinction between a checkbox and switch is still too vague and they should be the same thing”: that’s Invalid, because they are different controls, just like radio buttons and radio menus are different controls even though they both do radio selection. Checkboxes and switches look much less similar than they used to (switches used to have checkmarks too!), and they’ll look even less similar when checkboxes are moved to the left.

b. “a tick in a checkbox is too small to see on a phone (e.g. krillin) and should either never be used there, or need to be enlarged”. That is a matter of opinion, though I agree with you — the checkmark does look quite wispy on a BQ Aquaris E4.5.

It’s almost always a bad idea to cover multiple issues in the same bug report: firstly it slows and confuses developers trying to understand it, secondly the issues may be resolved differently, and thirdly even if they’re all fixed, that often involves different code developed by different people and/or at different times. So, please report a separate bug on the size of the tick in the checkbox.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I defer to the short bug description which is essentially one main issue. The secondary issue there could be seen as a suggested solution (which I know is bad to put in bug descriptions).