• Ideas

  • Back button/exiting behavior (Android)

Hey guys,

The new bunq app is fantastic and works really well (and is really pretty too 😍), but there is one major inconsistency between the bunq app and many major Android apps, and that's the behavior of the Back button.

I did a quick check, and on almost all apps that are on my phone right now, the Android Back button takes you back to the main menu before exiting the app. Instagram and Facebook will take you to your feed, Whatsapp goes back to messages, Outlook moves from Calendar to Email before closing. The same goes for Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Marktplaats, Tumblr, the Android Play Store, etc etc.

However, when I press the Back button in any of the main tabs in the bunq app, I exit the app. Of course this isn't a huge issue, but to me it feels like it goes against the usual Android design. For me, the expected behavior would be for the back button to take me to the Accounts tab, then exit the app.

I checked the Android design guidelines and I think there are two ways to look at this from a navigation design point of view:

1. The 5 main tabs should be seen as Bottom Navigation Bars (which I think they are). In this case the Material Design guidelines suggest the Back button should not be used to navigate between these menus.

2. The back button navigates through the history of screens the user worked with. In that case, the Accounts tab is the first tab that's opened when entering the app (except when the app is opened via a notification). I would argue the expected behavior of the back button would be to return to the Accounts menu before exiting the app, but that would also mean the 5 main menus take on the behavior of Tabs instead of Bottom Navigation Bars.

Personally I would prefer if the back button would navigate me back to the Accounts menu before it closes the app, but that's a matter of personal preference. On the other hand, it does seem consistent with the behavior of most Android apps.

I was wondering if other bunqers feel the same way about this design choice, let me know what you think 😉

EDIT: I was also wondering if this behavior was specifically chosen by the designers, and if there's a specific reason for that choice :)

    Cool to see you here as well Harm Jan!


    Thanks for another great tip, keep them coming 📝 I'm definitely putting this one on our wishlist!

    Very curious to also hear about other bunqers opinions on this matter.

      Short 'n simple: I'd like that too.

        Yes, more consistent ui is Welcome, menu's are too different, bottom navigation, almost alway s visible , unless other input is mandatory

          Actually, for consistency it would be better to adhere to the *bottom* navigation guidelines. Most of the apps you mentioned use tabs on the top of the screen.

          For the bunq app, that means that the back button behaviour is correct, and that the visible horizontal slide transition + gestures between tabs should be removed. (See the first and third guideline in the behaviour section here: https://material.io/guidelines/components/bottom-navigation.html#bottom-navigation-behavior)

            Technically that's correct, and that's also why I mentioned it in this post. But I think the Accounts tab can be regarded as the "homepage" of the bunq app, and I would expect to be sent back there before exiting. Instagram does the exact same thing, and it feels pretty intuitive to me. And in my opinion intuitive use has a higher priority than following the design rules to the letter 😉

              I also think, that bunq uses the bottom bar as it would be a tab bar on the top. However, I think that this is the more intuitive thing and also tabs on the top are more common in Android. Maybe bunq should change back the bottom bar into tabs at the top. What do you say?

                I don't really see a benefit in moving the tabs back to the top of the app, and it might be harder to reach for a lot of users 😁

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