should one customize default iphone controls?

Question

my app asks the user yes-no questions, user replies using a uiswitch on screen. i've been thinking about creating a custom version of the switch that would display yes/no instead of on/off and would use a green/red background as an indicator of the value. after creating a mock up i'm not so sure this is the way to go. using the default switch doesn't feel right but so does changing it too much. what do you think?

Screenshot

Answer 1

From a user interface perspective, this is a bad idea. People have already learned the default switch, so why change it now?

Additionally, you run the risk of adding another source of bugs to your application that was not present before.

Answer 2

It really depends; some custom applications have extremely custom UIs (such as ConvertBot, for example) and it works great for them. The risk is sometimes worth the effort. In other scenarios, custom widgets result in breaking usability. I don't think that changing 'ON/OFF' to 'YES/NO' is groundbreaking, if you do it right you can pull it off no problem.

I think if your mockup was better done (the slider should be divided into two to have YES AND NO of equal length with equal padding on both sides) it would look a little better.

Answer 3

Depending on the app, this can be very valid. Sure people are used to the default controls, but changing the text or colors is not going to break the user's understanding of these controls. Its still the same switch underneath.

In your example you color both the Yes/No. That is the only concern I would have that you did change how the core switch works. Typically, it works with a highlighted color and a grey color. So, having it stay colored on both options could potentially be confusing.

Regardless, if you want to build your app this way, you should. Just because the iPhone offers great default controls doesn't mean developers shouldn't innovate and add their own or take the default controls to the next level.

Take a look at the custom UISwitch control that I built to allow me to change the background color of the control. You could use the same method to change the text, the font, or the text color very easily.

http://www.homick.com/posts/custom-uiswitch-control

The code is available on Github and includes a PSD that is used to build three different png files that the control uses. You can modify the contents of the psd to recreate the png files in whatever format you like. Swap those into the control and away you go.