Collapse unit converters into single page and refresh layout

[grochocki]

Problem Statement
Today, we treat each converter type as a high-level navigation item. This means that if you want to switch between volume and weight converters, you need to navigate to an entirely different page. While we do offer shortcuts to switch between modes, they are not very discoverable (#157), and parsing a mixed list of calculators and converters is unnecessarily more complex than it needs to be. Furthermore, the converter page interface is laid out differently than other calculator modes and feedback suggests that the interface could be made more intuitive.

Evidence or User Insights
We currently have a flat navigation structure. According to app navigation guidance, this structure is appropriate when there are less than 8 pages in the group. We already have 13 converters, and #515 is looking at evaluating which converters and units we include, and suggests we may actually be missing some converter types (increase to 17). In this case, hierarchical or an alternative navigation would be preferred.

Some other UX issues have been identified as well. It is unclear how to quickly switch units (#172 and #266). There is some additional conversation in #382 and #379 as well.

Proposal
Collapse converters into a single "Converter" page where you can select the type of conversion in addition to the units. There may be an opportunity to streamline input even further with #589 to allow users to input any unit they like without having to explicitly select a converter type first.

Goals

• Collapse top-level converter navigation into a single Converter (open question: does currency converter feel different enough to remain separate?)
• Redesign page layout for greater consistency with other calculator modes
• Redesign value input to align with other converter patterns (e.g., found in translation apps)

Non-Goals

• Determining which converters/units to include is out-of-scope (covered by Converter should integrate (or reuse) online unit conversions (Bing or similar services) to increase category/unit coverage #515)

Low-Fidelity Concept

Bing Translator/Converter UX (for inspiration)

Requested Assignment
I'm just suggesting this idea. I don't want to implement it.

[ghost]

This pitch looks like it has everything it needs for review. In the meantime, we'll keep this idea open for discussion so the community has the chance to provide feedback. Check out our New Feedback Process for more info on the user-centered process we follow for new feature development.

[MicrosoftIssueBot]

This is your friendly Microsoft Issue Bot. I've seen this issue come in and have gone to tell a human about it.

[ghost]

We reviewed the pitch and would love to explore this idea further! The pitch is a great start, but there are still some open questions. I am moving this issue into planning to iron out some of those details and I created calculator-specs/unitNavigation to track progress. A human will follow up with some feedback on your pitch shortly. Keep in mind that not all ideas that make it into the planning phase are guaranteed to make it to release. For more information on next steps, check out our spec workflow.

[ghost]

/cc @grochocki @sanderl @rudyhuyn We may have a lot of conversion units in the future, as requested in #515. But many of the proposed units are merely prefixes to the already existing units. For example metre is a unit for measuring length. But milli, kilo, centi etc. are just the prefixes, which when applied, change the scale of measurement.

In this regard, we can keep the units in a drop down list as we do currently, and we can create a slider on the side so that the user can adjust the scale as per his/her choice. The slider can be like the one that we currently use in the graphing calculator for selecting the values of constants in an expression. After this the conversion should take place accordingly.

The slider may range from 10^(-20) to 10^20, or whatever may be better. And below it we can name the unit with appropriate prefixes, such as:

10^(-2): Centimetre
10^(-3): Millimetre
10^(-12): Picometre
10^6: Megametre

As we all know, these are standard prefixes that can be applied to mostly every unit in any converter type. But the scale may be adjusted for each converter type, because millimetre makes sense but millibyte does not.

Through this, we can avoid the congestion that we may have when we have a lot of units to deal with. Moreover, it will become very clear for the user to differentiate between units and scale of measurement. And thus, we will not have to keep centimetre, millimetre and kilometre in the same drop-down list.

However, there are some limitations too. This does not work for units like pound, ounces etc.

I know that it would have been more relevant if I had posted this in #515, but since the UI/UX for the Unit Converters is being altered drastically, this makes more sense here.

I would like to hear from you on this.