---
name: Double tap
slug: double-tap
category: interaction
status: published
created: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z
definition: Two taps in quick succession on the same spot, conventionally used
  to zoom in on content or to zoom back out when already zoomed.
aliases:
  - name: double touch
    source: material
  - name: double-tap to zoom
    source: community
  - name: double tap to like
    source: community
tags:
  - touch
relations:
  contrastWith:
    - double-click
    - tap
    - long-press
    - pinch-to-zoom
  variantOf: []
  partOf: []
  seeAlso: []
implementations:
  - system: material
    name: Double touch
    url: https://m1.material.io/patterns/gestures.html
sources:
  - title: "Material Design: Gestures"
    url: https://m1.material.io/patterns/gestures.html
  - title: "iOS HIG: Gestures"
    url: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/gestures
demo: inline
exhibit: false
useWhen: two quick taps that mean zoom, not activate
---

Material describes the gesture literally: press, lift, press, lift, and the example it
gives is zoom in. That is almost the whole convention. On a photo, a map, or a page of
text, two quick taps enlarge the content around the point that was touched, and two more
put it back. The pair of taps has to land close together in both time and space, and the
system, not your interface, owns the thresholds.

The gesture is worth knowing about even if you never wire it, because it costs something
by existing. Mobile browsers historically waited roughly 300 milliseconds after every tap
to see whether a second one was coming, which made every button on every page feel
slightly late. Declaring a responsive viewport, or `touch-action: manipulation` on the
control, tells the browser this element has no double tap to wait for, and the delay
disappears.

The second convention is the hidden one: double tapping a photo to like it. It is a
shortcut layered on top of a control that already exists elsewhere on the card, which is
the only honest way to ship a gesture nobody can see. When a double tap is the only route
to something, the people locked out are specific and identifiable: anyone whose motor
control cannot produce two presses inside the interval, anyone using a screen reader
where a double tap already means activate, and anyone on a desktop where the equivalent
is a double click with a different set of conventions again.

Both taps still arrive on their own. On the web the first `click` fires, then the second,
then `dblclick`, so a single tap must do something sensible by itself rather than being
swallowed while the interface waits to find out whether a second one is coming. Selecting
on the first tap and zooming on the pair is the pattern that composes; a timer that holds
back the first tap makes every single tap feel broken.