How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#21

Post by dillonmckay » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:12 PM UTC

davweb wrote: post #17

jakub_g wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My previous phone - Asus Zenfone - featured the one-hand mode, where you scale whole viewport down and move it on the screen as you see fit. See this image: https://www.technokick.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/DSCN79... Maybe not beautiful but it was practical in some cases. More vendors should ship things like this. But the companies value fake visual niceness over usability so I'm not holding my breath.

iOS has Reachability[1] which is a similar solution the same problems. The problem with solutions like this is that they are often hard to discover. 1: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph77bcdd132/13...

I find it interesting that it is supported on a 6s, but not an SE.

I assume it is because the screen is the ‘correct’ size on the SE.

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#22

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:14 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed. Since you’re probably right-handed anything you put within reach for yourself will be difficult to reach for southpaws.

> While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed

Try 10%.

"Studies suggest that approximately 10% of the world population is left-handed. [...] Studies suggest that approximately 90% of the world population is right-handed." [1]

The same webpage also suggests that in e.g. sports, left handed people are overrepresented and have an [at times severe] advantage.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#23

Post by ourmandave » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:16 PM UTC

maehwasu wrote: post #3

This article was definitely not about what I thought it would be.

I had the same thought, but it's true the guys running big pr0n sites are doing a lot of innovative and cutting edge stuff.

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#24

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:19 PM UTC

krsdcbl wrote: post #18

mojuba wrote: post #8

Years ago I made an attempt at a UI that wouldn't even require repositioning the phone in your hand: the buttons are literally under your thumb (if you forgive my shameless self-plug): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/futurecalc-futuristic-calculat...

I remember this being a thing for sometime, years ago as you said - always found this approach very interesting and resulting in beautiful and diverse UIs. Sadly this trend seems to have faded away together with the rejection of skeumorphism and the advent of "design systems" (eg component lib based design)

Back then the UIs and OSes were less set in stone. Nowadays we have two mobile UIs: iOS and Android (while there's also the gesture-based SailfishOS [1]). Just like everyone's a Qwerty user, which isn't necessarily the most efficient, even on mobile (example [2]). Problem is, you can only deviate so much from the defaults/standards.

[1] https://sailfishos.org/design/gestures/

[2] https://keybee.it/

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#25

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:23 PM UTC

jakub_g wrote: post #7

Dunedan wrote: post #6

I very recently started using a phone which is too large to be used with one hand. Not because I wanted to, but because my old phone was aging, I needed a new one and nowadays there aren't any recent and decent phones anymore which are small enough to allow one-handed usage. And so far it's been mostly annoying. Sure, the larger display is great, but the lost ability to operate the phone with single handed is a real…

My previous phone - Asus Zenfone - featured the one-hand mode, where you scale whole viewport down and move it on the screen as you see fit. See this image: https://www.technokick.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/DSCN79... Maybe not beautiful but it was practical in some cases. More vendors should ship things like this. But the companies value fake visual niceness over usability so I'm not holding my breath.

LineageOS has a left/right hand mode. Basically the screen gets resized to about 75% of the size, with the top right (for left hand mode) or top left (for right hand mode) becoming black. It can be activated by swiping from left to right / right to left on the bottom bar.

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#26

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:27 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #8

Years ago I made an attempt at a UI that wouldn't even require repositioning the phone in your hand: the buttons are literally under your thumb (if you forgive my shameless self-plug): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/futurecalc-futuristic-calculat...

Interestingly, such UI (well done, but seen such before) challenges the whole size of the smartphone as we know it, akin to a gaming keypad [1] challenging a keyboard.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaming_keypad

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#27

Post by PeterisP » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:35 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed. Since you’re probably right-handed anything you put within reach for yourself will be difficult to reach for southpaws.

The "handedness" of phone use is also not stable. For example, a right-handed person might want to swipe stuff on the phone in the left hand with the left thumb while holding a mug in my right hand.

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#28

Post by swiley » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:39 PM UTC

I so wish phones had relative touch mode where the portion of the screen not covered by the keyboard acted like a trackpad.

It's not sexy but it's (IMO) much more ergonomic.

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#29

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:47 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #22

jschwartzi wrote: post #13

While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed. Since you’re probably right-handed anything you put within reach for yourself will be difficult to reach for southpaws.

> While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed Try 10%. "Studies suggest that approximately 10% of the world population is left-handed. [...] Studies suggest that approximately 90% of the world population is right-handed." [1] The same webpage also suggests that in e.g. sports, left handed people are overrepresented and have an [at times severe] advantage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

[deleted]

Re: How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

#30

Post by Double_a_92 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #11

Hm, doesn't seem right. My thumb can't reach the other side of the screen when I'm holding it with one hand. The lower yellow space is where my thumb can reach best.

Same. I don't have the biggest hands, but the when holding the phone with my right hand, the only area that is comfortable to reach is near the bottom right corner. That green "peak" on the top left definitely doesn't exist for me.

Tbh I'm not really able to do any interactive thing on my phone with just one hand. No matter how good the UI is. Reading news from a scrollable list, or swiping through pictures are the only things that are doable for me. Maybe I really have small hands? ._.