world of nuanWhere do hands and fingers go on the device? Are we really putting elements in the right place in responsive design? Come and see several views of how users hold and control their mobile devices. Perhaps a few points will surprise you and you will start putting important elements of the page in more user-accessible places.
We hold phones, phablets, tablets and laptops in very different ways. It follows that each of these touchscreen variants has its own user interface needs.
Editors’ Note: We’re pleased to share an excerpt from the first chapter of Josh Clark’s new book, Designing for Touch , now available on A Book Apart .
Still, these devices are also unified in some ways, especially when it comes to the key role of thumbs. Whether we’re touching tiny phones or giant tablets, thumbs handle the majority of browsing activities. This fact helps establish robust guidelines across diverse devices. In this chapter, we’ll look at why the thumb is so important and reveal the fundamental or “rules of thumb” based on how we use them to grab screens of all sizes.
Most often, of course, we hold a smartphone. We stare at it for more than 20% of the time we are awake, consulting it an average of 221 times a day . So we’ll start with the device we know most intimately.
How people hold their phones
In 2013, researcher Steven Hoober took to the streets and observed over 1,300 people tapping their phones . He saudi arabia phone number data found that in almost all cases, they held the phones in one of three basic types of grips.
For 49% of them, the one-handed about the popularity of black grip was the most popular
36% had their phone in the palm of one hand and poked it with the finger or thumb of the other hand
15% adopted BlackBerry as their prayer cg leads position, i.e. holding both hands and tapping with both thumbs
Hold a mobile phone
When working with a smartphone, we use three basic grips and often alternate between them.
The study also confirmed what many of us already know from our own phog a book about designing for touchscreens with the other.
So while few of us settle for a single grip, we do show a distinct preference for holding our phone in one hand. And that brings us to the thumbs. When holding the phone with one hand, the thumb is the only finger we can use to tap comfortably. And even if we use a two-handed grip, many of us still prefer to tap with our thumb. For those who hold their phone in the palm of one hand and tap with the other, Hoober found that most use their thumb on the screen. When we put all those people together, we have it under our thumb: 75% of all phone interactions are driven by our thumbs .ce and mastery.