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How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage

smashingmagazine.com

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

#41

Post by Jaruzel »

Fnoord wrote: post #39
Jaruzel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean we're to be ignored? If so, I am insulted. There are approximately 2% of people in wheel-chairs in the UK and approximately 3% of blind people, would you ignore them in your accessibility design? No, of course not. Then why should 10% of left-handers be ignored? And before you say 'left-handedness is not a disability' try living as a leftie for 1 week, and see the problems we have to deal with every da…

> Does this mean we're to be ignored? If so, I am insulted. No, I'm sorry you got that impression. I am just setting the facts straight (20% is a completely different percentage than 10%). My partner is left-handed, my daughter might be, and I grew up with a disabled father (he ended up in wheelchair and was practically blind). I feel a lot of empathy to minority groups such as the ones you mentioned (plus a myriad o…

> No, I'm sorry you got that impression.

Ok, Fair enough :)

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

#42

Post by larrik »

phn wrote: post #9
jbverschoor wrote: post #5

I still don't understand how Apple does noet update their guidelines. Navigation and the top bar are sch a pain to use. Reachability helps, but it's just bandaid around bad decisions

Also, reachability suffered a big blow in usability when they got rid of the home button - swiping down on the bottom of the screen is very awkward and prone to clicking something unintentionally.

I didn't even know what the new gesture was, just kept doing it by accident.

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

#43

Post by filleduchaos »

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…

Sony did for ages (with their flagship compact line), but in general people don't actually seek out and buy products with the features they claim to want/need.

(I am very, _very_ bitter over the growing certainty that the XZ2 Compact was the last of the compacts).

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

#45

Post by Schattenbaer »

One of my family members has only one hand, the left.

They would love to have a camera on hand to capture spontaneous moments around their young children. But choosing a smartphone is a compromise between buying a low-level phone that is small enough to be operated with one hand, normally leaving you with a terrible camera, or one with a decent(-ish) camera that is a pain/impossible to use day to day due to the screen size.

BTW just using a camera on a smartphone with one hand is no joke; the trigger buttons generally assume a right-handed or two-handed hold. You can test this by operating your phone with your right hand held behind your back.

I'd love to see more UI designs that take into account that some people have non-standard configurations.

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

#46

Post by thosakwe »

oflannabhra wrote: post #40

I had long thought that Apple was about to have a big shift in native UI components, because for years they have been shipping first party apps that have card based interfaces that progressively disclose complexity as the card is pulled up from the bottom. Maps and Music are the most obvious examples of this paradigm, but ever since iPhone 6 Plus, a back button in the top left has been a bad paradigm (although the sy…

For anyone else who was wondering, HIG = Human interface guidelines.

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

#47

Post by psychomugs »

Schattenbaer wrote: post #45

One of my family members has only one hand, the left. They would love to have a camera on hand to capture spontaneous moments around their young children. But choosing a smartphone is a compromise between buying a low-level phone that is small enough to be operated with one hand, normally leaving you with a terrible camera, or one with a decent(-ish) camera that is a pain/impossible to use day to day due to the scree…

I'm a street / documentary photographer so I have more experience than most, but I keep my iPhone 6S in my left pockets and operate it one-handed a lot of the time.

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

#48

Post by cryptozeus »

jessriedel wrote: post #44

One of the worst aspects of Spotify's near monopoly is that it comes bundled with their app, which is functional but not great. I'm particular, the number of times I need to reach to the top then bottom of the screen to accomplish simple things is too high.

Which version? Their entire menu is at the bottom

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

#49

Post by dfxm12 »

Schattenbaer wrote: post #45

One of my family members has only one hand, the left. They would love to have a camera on hand to capture spontaneous moments around their young children. But choosing a smartphone is a compromise between buying a low-level phone that is small enough to be operated with one hand, normally leaving you with a terrible camera, or one with a decent(-ish) camera that is a pain/impossible to use day to day due to the scree…

I'm a lefty, so I've probably adapted to this over the years, but I regularly use my phone's camera with one (left) hand. At least on Android (my recent phones were the pixel 3 & pixel), the shutter button is low and in middle.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, unlocking it, opening the camera app and taking a picture all with my left hand is a pretty common task for me and not really any trouble at all.

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