I'm gonna talk about corner cases in my smartphone life in China, a worse than other situations. One of annoying stuff is some apps don't support the copy text function. For instance, Baidu(is a kind of google in China) app toggles a context menu when I do long press on the screen.
In the context menu, there is not a text copy item. Sure, I can use other web browsers to avoid this suck (yay, good bye!), But just curious why they don't support the copy text? Actually, from Baidu web-surfing, I could find a bunch of users asked about this similar situations, they seemed be annoying about this strange corner.
This is not only the Baidu web app problem but other apps also do. For example, Baidu Map, Didichuxing(a kind of Uber) are one of the essential tools for my daily life in China. Practically, a lot of citizens and tourists also depend on these apps. Let's jump into Baidu map.
Baidu map
This is worse. Of course Baidu map is not irreplaceable but still it is a representative map app in China. Somewhat it is better than other foreign companies maps (i.e, google map) because it is specialized in China region and data. When user searches a region, it suggests additional information such as most favorite restaurants, tourists attractions etc. That is not surprising, it is a common feature all over the map apps.
Point here is, when I searched a good place and think to dig it more, I need to research it using a web browser. That means, I need to copy one of information-address, phone number, store name, region name, etc- and then paste in the search box of the browser. But, It doesn't allow me to copy this information. Oops, you know, Chinese is very difficult to type if you don't know how to read the Chinese characters. First time, it is outrageous. It is very annoying when I could not read them. In the end, I give up searching and go back to the google map because English is better than Chinese to me. Of course, we can use Chinese dictionary then find how to read the Chinese characters and then research it. But I'm sure it is also horribly inconvenient.
Now, question, why they don't allow us to search the characters? I imagine two scenarios.
A. intentional purpose (for contents protection)
B. technical issue.
C. design problem (Is it considerable? Or just have no idea why they need to support it)
At least, I'm sure there is not an intentional purpose because that information is not serious data at all. Also, when you use a browser using desktop PC, it still allows user to copy text information. So, it just leads to A or B problems.
In point of S/W development view, basically software platforms support a text widget or similar UI components which support text copy/paste function in default. If some text part or text view of the application doesn't enable the copy text function, I guess it probably uses an extra component, not the default one, for the text area. I don't like to talk to you it is wrong because we don't understand its background. However, I'm still curious why they don't support it, Is it difficult? Or they just think it is just a trivial function?
I checked Google map and Naver map(a famous Korean map app) just in case. And then surprisingly I just realized Naver map doesn't support multi-language feature. Also, it doesn't support text copy function for whole text area but does only for some of them. Still, it is inconvenient for me but I think it's better than Baidu map.
Naver map
Then how about Google? Impressive! It supports not only multi-language but also text copy function.
Support Multi-Language
Copy text information
If you see the above Google map figure, its copy text UI interface is not a default one. It seems one of the additional or extra ones(just my guess). So I am surprised because it means they intentionally added that feature for this user scenario that I encountered.
Default copy and paste UI interface
I'm not one google sucker but a little surprised by google. Because in China, people cannot use Google service but google apps still perfectly works for Chinese. (Of course it needs VPN)
Today, we checked one use-case even though a trivial one, but I'd like to say this, every software companies can develop similar software products but their quality and service won't be same. As if it is a kind of this, masterpiece or not. That comes from a difference of software design. When we design a software, do we consider user scenarios enough? Do we design a software for user convenient or just try to copy the prime one? It is clear that, with enough considering user scenarios to make them convenient, users definitely feel your software is better and feel a greater identity of your company.