Now that Apple has finally relented to the phablet craze, it seems that the relentless march towards increasingly large phones is showing no signs of turning back. Not only are phones growing in size, their usage is increasing as well. Here is one chart from a recent article in Quartz showing the browsing share of larger and smaller phones:
With all of that increased usage, mobile design will have to adapt accordingly.
From the article, there is a study on how people use their larger phones:
This assumption comes from a study that mobile expert Steve Hoober conducted with 1,333 people early last year. He discovered that people held their phones in the following ways:
- One handed: 49%;
- cradled: 36%;
- two handed: 15%.
Handedness figures were also instructive:
- Right thumb on the screen: 67%;
- left thumb on the screen: 33%.
Hoober notes that left-handedness figures in the population are around 10%. So the observed higher rate of left-handed use could be correlated with people doing other things at the same time—smoking, riding a bike, drinking coffee, eating currywurst and so on.
Here is an interesting heat map from later in the article. It displays the progression of the average user's ability to use their left thumbs in a one-handed mode to reach various areas of the screen. As you can clearly see, there are significant programming challenges if you have an app or website that involves a user in one-handed mode!
Here is the link to the full article: How to design for thumbs in the era of huge screens – Quartz
No comments:
Post a Comment