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Dual-touch smartphone design concept

blog.assaflavie.com

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Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#3

Post by joshmlewis »

Ok, try picking up your phone and trying out the movement on the back of the phone that this would require. It doesn't work. If the majority of the phone is touch sensitive how are you supposed to hold it? It makes for really awkward movement of your hand and let's say you figured out how to get the scrolling down, you still have A HUGE issue of UI. The iOS experience nor its apps were made for any kind of cursor or mouse interface.

If you need to reach across the screen without taking up screen real estate, use your other hand. Or use a stylus. Problem solved.

Edit: Also not to mention that for the most part iOS does a pretty good job of letting me be pretty accurate with my bulky fingers. It's not perfect, but it's certainly not terrible.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#4

Post by hughes »

joshmlewis wrote: post #3

Ok, try picking up your phone and trying out the movement on the back of the phone that this would require. It doesn't work. If the majority of the phone is touch sensitive how are you supposed to hold it? It makes for really awkward movement of your hand and let's say you figured out how to get the scrolling down, you still have A HUGE issue of UI. The iOS experience nor its apps were made for any kind of cursor or…

My hand is in contact with the touchpad on my laptop almost constantly, but this rarely causes any unintended interaction.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#6

Post by tgb »

I suspect that Apple, Samsung, etc. have thought of this, so why aren't they doing it? (After all, the PS Vita has had a back touchpad for a while.) The first thing that comes to mind is that people hold their phones with the back. Accidental clicks would be very difficult to avoid. In contrast, the PS Vita is larger, held with both hands and has non-touchpad areas of the back where you can grip it, as I understand.

I'd still like to see someone try it.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#7

Post by nkozyra »

hughes wrote: post #4
joshmlewis wrote: post #3

Ok, try picking up your phone and trying out the movement on the back of the phone that this would require. It doesn't work. If the majority of the phone is touch sensitive how are you supposed to hold it? It makes for really awkward movement of your hand and let's say you figured out how to get the scrolling down, you still have A HUGE issue of UI. The iOS experience nor its apps were made for any kind of cursor or…

My hand is in contact with the touchpad on my laptop almost constantly, but this rarely causes any unintended interaction.

Same although it causes me problems frequently because I also use a mouse. In fact sometimes when typing I'll every so gently brush the pad and jump somewhere else and start overwriting things.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#8

Post by assaflavie »

joshmlewis wrote: post #3

Ok, try picking up your phone and trying out the movement on the back of the phone that this would require. It doesn't work. If the majority of the phone is touch sensitive how are you supposed to hold it? It makes for really awkward movement of your hand and let's say you figured out how to get the scrolling down, you still have A HUGE issue of UI. The iOS experience nor its apps were made for any kind of cursor or…

I actually find the scroll motion to be very easy to perform using my index finger. However, I do agree there are issues to consider when it comes to usability. You definitely want to prevent unintended gestures and clicks/taps. So for one thing, the back touch doesn't necessarily have to be "on" all the time. It may be a mode that you enter under certain circumstances. And perhaps more advanced gesturing algorithms are needed to filter out intended from undintended gestures - maybe giving more weight to the size of the touch area, so that you palm resting on the back doesn't register as an event.

I don't pretend to have the answers to all these issues, but something tells me that smartphones can do much better than the current state of the art when it comes to game controls, to pointing at precise location, etc. And it goes without saying that this won't work with the existing mobile OSs as-is.

Re: Dual-touch smartphone design concept

#9

Post by joshmlewis »

hughes wrote: post #4
joshmlewis wrote: post #3

Ok, try picking up your phone and trying out the movement on the back of the phone that this would require. It doesn't work. If the majority of the phone is touch sensitive how are you supposed to hold it? It makes for really awkward movement of your hand and let's say you figured out how to get the scrolling down, you still have A HUGE issue of UI. The iOS experience nor its apps were made for any kind of cursor or…

My hand is in contact with the touchpad on my laptop almost constantly, but this rarely causes any unintended interaction.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Your laptop is several times bigger than your phone so it's not as big as an issue. We are talking about a device that's smaller than your hand.
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