We’ve all used that front-facing camera on our phones. We’re used to seeing our image in mirrors, so our phones flip the image to match that interaction; however, others don’t see us this way and text is not meant to be displayed like this. This leads us to a common scenario where you see something posted and the text is backwards.
Should we be designing these products to automatically flip the image when posted? Even if the user posting knows that it’s wrong, there is rarely an obvious way to flip it back to normal.
Let’s brainstorm some solutions.
- Use AI to detect backwards text
- Automatically fix when posting
- Prompt user when posting that we think there is backwards text, provide quick option to fix and preview
- Provide easier options in the app’s editing tools to flip the image
- After posting, give the user an option to flip it while they are viewing (e.g. a button to flip while pressed) – best to only show if we thing there’s mirrored text
- Give an option for user who posted to fix after it has been posted – some platforms don’t permit editing, but maybe make an exception for this one fix
- Do nothing
