
Redesigning the smartphone dial pad - ssdesign
https://uxdesign.cc/re-designing-the-smartphone-dial-pad-2df226ec620f
======
sharpercoder
I really like the thumb-reach heatmaps. This has been my personal experience
on larger phones as well: I should be able to "thumb the numbers".

I don't like a redesign because it's simply too ingrained. It's a sailed ship.

Note that our screens are big enough to waste space to nothing, at least for a
phone dial screen. So we can redesign it to:

    
    
        ___________________________
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |                         |
        |        1    2    3      |
        |                         |
        |        4    5    6      |
        |                         |
        |        7    8    9      |
        |                         |
        |             0           |
        |                         |
        |_________________________|

~~~
horsawlarway
As a left handed user... I fucking despise the idea of thumb-reach heatmaps
geared solely towards right handed use.

As a side note, we make up ~10 percent of all users. If you design to the
thumb reach of right handed users by default, you're fucking over a lot of
people.

Add on that ~19 percent of the population has some form of disability, and a
solid chunk of that involves hand/limb usages, making the head-up-ass
assumption that a right handed thumb map is the "ideal" approach is... well
you've shoved your head up your ass.

\----

edit: I want to add, I'm not attacking you so much as the general premise of
the article. I come off as fairly hostile on this since it's such a common day
to day inconvenience for a broad swath of the population.

~~~
glandium
I'm right handed, but somehow I hold the phone and dial with the left hand. I
don't think I'm alone, so this is not only a left-handedness problem.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I am right-handed, and I also hold the phone in my left hand. It goes in my
left pocket.

~~~
glandium
Now that you mention it, it's also in my left pocket.

~~~
IgorPartola
Going to guess: your keys for your car are in your right pocket because that
way they are in your right hand when you go to start it.

~~~
nathanaldensr
Hah, yep. Wallet and keys in right pocket, phone in left... as a right-handed
person.

~~~
Cerium
I'm left handed. Keys are in the right pocket, since most cars have key holes
on the right of the steering column.

~~~
jpl56
I'm right handed and put my car keys in the left pocket, just because I use
them less than my phone!

------
devindotcom
To me, none of these seems like a real improvement, and they all have
drawbacks.

Part of the reason the current layout works is because it is well chunked. You
have 123 on top, 456 in the middle, and 789 on the bottom. 0 and functional
keys, which often serve their own purpose, get their own row. Four sets of
three, nicely like the way our minds like to remember numerals and sets of
numerals. Shape-wise, 1-9 are in a square, in numerical order from left to
right just like a paragraph, then the others continue the pattern to a lesser
extent. This creates a very easy and forgiving mental map because it is a
simple shape, the full width (more or less) of the display or device, with a
familiar pattern.

In contrast, 4 of these designs have different numbers of numbers on each row,
some with several different widths. You'd have to remember, was it three
numbers in the first row, or two? How many in the second? Was that one with an
extra button on the side?

So to start these designs don't seem to consider why the original design is
successful.

Next they don't seem to include the context of the thumb thing. We often hold
our phone in one hand because precision is not required for most apps, for
example Instagram where all functionality is within that bottom easy zone. But
other apps require precision, many games for instance, and it's likely people
change their grip frequently for those contexts. Is there data on that
specifically? Anecdotally I seem to remember most people I know holding with
one hand and dialing with the other. So the reach of the thumb isn't as big a
consideration as the designers might think.

And as others have pointed out it won't save much time, since hardly anyone
uses the dialpad except the occasional adding of a contact or dialing of a
conference line.

I don't mean to rag on this (rereading, I sounded more critical than I am), I
think it's fun to try to redesign stuff. But it reminds me of when people try
to remake the ordinary wall outlet. They start modifying it without really
considering how deceptively well designed it is.

~~~
astrodust
Every single one of these alternative layouts is a load of hot garbage. The
reason the current layout is good is because it's _good enough_ and familiar.
If you have a problem with thumb reach then make the pad smaller, move it
closer to the thumb, or make it easier for people to input the number through
other methods than keypad.

We can recognize QR codes, heck, even do AR on a phone. Surely identifying
phone numbers via the camera and inputting them that way would be easy _and_ a
measurable improvement over the current method of mashing buttons.

Since dialing a number by hand is such an infrequent operation, inventing some
wonkball new standard for it is a super bad plan. There's a lot of other
things you could innovate on and come up with real improvements, like how you
might make a better audio playback control system, or re-visiting mixing tools
(equalizer, cross-fader, effects filters) for music to make them easier to
understand on an intuitive level.

The dial pad is fine. Leave it alone.

~~~
ksk
Choosing to work on improving things that are used infrequently, or impact a
smaller populace is good. The long-tail of UX is well understood.

~~~
astrodust
Not really. What if there's an emergency and someone's trying to dial a number
but, due to mitigating circumstances, are having trouble using your crazypants
dial pad?

What if, worse, they're only familar with your pad and are confronted with an
actual phone that uses a totally different system?

What if this isn't a dial pad, but an interface for a car or heavy equipment?
What if, in a moment of panic, someone's muscle memory kicks in and they do
what they've always done to avoid disaster, only in your system it does the
opposite?

Switching from rotary dial to a dial pad was a big deal, and whatever system
they chose for the dial pad out of all those kooky options would be the
_standard_. If they had them in random order for whatever reason, then leave
it alone.

I see this all the time when people think they're "helping" by showing a
keyboard in alphabetical order. No, not helping.

It used to be that every single country would have one or more power plug
types. Over the years some have faded out, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes
stubbornly, but having fewer standards is almost always better.

The long-tail of UX is misunderstood indeed. Just because you _can_ redesign
something doesn't mean you _should_.

~~~
ksk
>What if there's an emergency and someone's trying to dial a number but, due
to mitigating circumstances, are having trouble using your crazypants dial
pad?

What if they're handicapped, and only have one finger and the new layout
allows them to dial faster? The current design would have failed them. Every
design works within the constraints that are given. Creating cases where a
particular design works/doesn't work isn't hard or interesting, unless you
actually do something about it (which is what this article is proposing).

>The long-tail of UX is misunderstood indeed.

Then I would invite you to study it some more.

>Just because you can redesign something doesn't mean you should.

No reading of what I said, or the linked article has anything even remotely
close to suggesting that. Maybe you could have asked for clarification since
your reply seems very confused to me.

~~~
astrodust
> Then I would invite you to study it some more.

I am very much a UX enthusiast if not long-time student of that field. I am a
constant proponent for usability features.

These patently awful dial pads help _nobody_ but the authors of the blog post
fishing for clicks. They're junk. They're worse than useless.

Apple made a "one handed keyboard" for iOS 11
([http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/21/inside-
ios-11-appl...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/09/21/inside-
ios-11-apples-new-one-handed-keyboard-allows-for-easier-typing)) and it shows
how it can be done. They scrunched it down a bit to make it more convenient to
use. They did not arbitrarily rearrange everything into an unfamiliar layout
and force that layout on everyone who wanted to use that feature.

Another example is the Matias "half" keyboard
([http://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/](http://matias.ca/halfkeyboard/)) which comes
in two varieties: Minimal and full-sized. Both offer similar features and are
intended to be used with one hand. Note they didn't jumble up the keys,
either, they made it as conventional and familiar as possible while _still
achieving usability goals_.

~~~
ksk
Design that can't stand up to honest scrutiny isn't good design IMO. If you
feel this isn't honest scrutiny, then that is a separate issue than saying one
shouldn't work on established UX paradigms.

------
tbgvi
One of the concept mockups says patent pending. If the author is attempting to
patent this I can see why he wants to re-open the established standard, but
there isn't much value in changing how the buttons are arranged. And frankly,
if he's trying to patent this button layout, it doesn't matter if it's any
better because it will never be used due to the patent.

The future is more likely dialing by voice than it is a re-arranged button
layout.

~~~
madsohm
Dialing by voice? Surely the future is not dialing at all?

I can't remember the last time I used a phone number for anything. Contacting
friends is mostly done via social media. Talking on the phone is done via
voice or video via same social media. Contacting companies? Via e-mail or
their own webpage with some kind of chat support.

I only have a phone number, so that people without smart phones (my
grandmother) can contact me.

~~~
JTon
> I only have a phone number, so that people without smart phones (my
> grandmother) can contact me.

And 2FA!

~~~
d4l3k
It's also strongly recommended to not use SMS for 2FA considering how easy it
is to spoof/intercept.

------
wakamoleguy
I find testing new user experiences for something as established as a dial pad
to be interesting. This post mostly talks about changing the design for the
dial pad to put more buttons within thumb reach, without going into many of
the additional challenges.

For example, as others commented, many users primarily 'dial' their smartphone
nowadays by tapping on somebody's face or going through their contact
information. The cost of changing the experience may not be worth the added
benefit. Along those same lines, it may well be that most dial pad users are
not the owner of the phone, but somebody who borrows it to make a call or
enter their own info. In that case, the experience should be familiar to them,
regardless of whether the user has grown accustomed to a new dial pad. These
are the kinds of factors I'd like to see discussed in researching a new dial
pad experience.

Resistance to change on something like this is real. In developing a web-based
phone app, people who were using computers, with keyboards, would still prefer
to click on the buttons in the style of a traditional dial pad. To me,
investigating those challenges are much more interesting than "Here are some
designs; let's see which you say you like."

~~~
i_cant_speel
Whenever I am going to call someone, I use the dial pad but I start to type
their name instead of their phone number. I feel like that is also pretty
common so I wouldn't say this is something where the costs would outweigh the
benefits.

~~~
dmix
Good point, even if I don't have them in my contact book with a name I still
likely have called them previously, so I used the recent caller list and
scroll + click on the number I recognize.

I wouldn't say dialing a new number is a common use case for me. But that
doesn't mean people don't do it often enough to warrant research.

These generic "solved" UX issues are still things that millions of people do
each day, given a billion phones, so it's well worth a modern UX study IMO.

------
brittohalloran
This missing element of that analysis is that in the smartphone era you almost
never type out a phone number. You were texted it and click on it, see it on
the web and click on it, found the company on Google maps and click on it...

The dial-pad may be too difficult to reach on our big screens now, but the
momentum required to change it will never exist because it simply doesn't get
enough use to be a pain point anymore.

Excellent write up and use of graphics though. The Bell labs part was really
interesting.

~~~
ianburrell
Phone numbers are also entered into contacts and other places with the number
pad keyboard. The numpad keyboard works better on bigger screens than the full
dial pad since it occupies bottom of screen.

Replacing the dial pad with the numpad keyboard would solve the problem and
not require custom layout. It would also be more consistent across
applications that do calls instead of having a special dial pad for the phone
app.

------
weinzierl
> So Bell System decided to conduct their own research, and after testing many
> different layouts, decided to choose the one that we all use now.

The article glosses over the fact that the layout we use now was not not the
best in the Bell study. As you can see from the image in the article [1] the
traditional circular layout was the only one that had both significantly
shorter keying time and significantly lower error rate. The other source they
link to [2] says that "Performance and preference differences, though, were
deemed to be fairly small overall across the five finalists, so for
engineering reasons Bell went with the layout we know today."

[1]
[https://archive.org/stream/bstj39-4-995#page/n3/mode/2up](https://archive.org/stream/bstj39-4-995#page/n3/mode/2up)

[2] [https://99percentinvisible.org/article/squaring-circle-
seven...](https://99percentinvisible.org/article/squaring-circle-seventen-
telephone-keypad-layouts/)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> As you can see from the image in the article the traditional circular layout
> was the only one that had both significantly shorter keying time and
> significantly lower error rate.

The image in the article shows nothing of the kind, as you might notice if you
ask "lower than what?" On your analysis, layout IV-A had a "significantly
shorter keying time" than layout VI-A, but that's nonsense -- those are the
same layout.

The answer is that "significantly lower error rate" and "significantly shorter
keying time" refer to statistics taken within a comparison group of three
layouts, and don't apply to comparisons between a layout from one group and
another layout (or the same layout!) from a different group.

~~~
weinzierl
> The image in the article shows nothing of the kind,

You are right in that the comparison was only between the group of three
layouts in a row. From the image no conclusion about the performance of the
layouts in different rows can be drawn.

However, in the same study, they did a direct comparison between the grid and
and the circular layouts and here are the numbers:

    
    
                                 KEYING TIME  PER CENT                             
                                  (SECONDS)    ERRORS   
        THREE-BY-THREE PLUS ONE    6.01         2.5
        TELEPHONE                  5.90         2.0
        SPEEDOMETER                5.97         3.0
    

The study concludes that the differences are not significant. So my point
still stands: The grid was not chosen because of superiority in the human
factors study but because, in the words of the study: "the rectangular
arrangements [..] offered certain engineering advantages".

------
1_2__4
It always seems odd to me that people want to readdress solved problems. When
I mean solved in this case I mean reached a level of usability where the
design became stable, then familiar, then standard/de jure.

The oppprtunities for improvement here are minuscule, and nonexistent if you
take into account familiarity and expectation. We should save this kind of
blue sky redesign for new or less solved design problems and stop making
people’s experience worse in pursuit of some noble but misguided strive for
constant and relentless disruption.

~~~
sizzle
I'm surprised this person is a UX director and doing the work of an undergrad
research 101 project.

------
jandrese
Why not simply shrink the dial pad back down to iPhone 4 size and put it in
the thumb zone? Is there a reason it needs to take up the whole screen? Sure
it will look a bit weird, but the ergonomics would be a win.

I would probably still center it though, since we don't know which hand is
holding the phone.

------
coldtea
> _So, looking at the image, one may question — Why did the Push Button phones
> changed the dial button positions from a circular arrangement to a different
> layout?_

Because the "register a number as dialed" mechanism was different, and didn't
require people moving their fingers in a circular motion -- so they've made
the buttons equidistant.

> _He suggests that most of us hold the phone from the bottom such that the
> base of our thumb is at the bottom right of the screen (considering 90% of
> population is right handed)._

49% is not most of us -- most of us use something else (according to the
diagram). It's just the way with the most users, not the way most people use
(subtle difference: the other 2 popular ways amount for 51% of users).

What's more important, the other 2 ways are not some outliers, or severely
fragmented styles, but 2 holding styles will major followings. So those should
be catered too as well.

------
dyeje
Cool idea but I'm kinda baffled by the new designs. The writer presents the
thumb reach diagrams, but then the none of the new designs seem to conform to
the very clear curve of those diagrams?

~~~
ferdbold
Because conforming to the curve assumes everyone is right-handed

~~~
dyeje
Add a setting to use right, left, or ambidextrous (probably just the old
design). Bonus points, make them pick the first time they use the phone.

------
rightos
I feel like the "how people hold the phone" study is sort of flawed - people
probably hold it in each of these positions at different times.

One-handed: clicking audio controls, scrolling through news or similar content

One hand holding, one hand tapping: more precise input of things like phone
numbers, browsing web pages, etc.

Two hands holding: typing long messages, some games.

Maybe it's because I have a larger phone (5.5"), but I wouldn't do any input
task more than a single button press or scroll using my thumb. I always bust
out the other hand for that.

------
TheRealWatson
I'd take it one step further and just say to hell with phone numbers. It's
about time we can just "resolve" names into devices. With URIs or something
prettier.

I know I'm overlooking existing infrastructure and countries with fewer
smartphones but we need to leave this behind at some point.

~~~
chrsstrm
You mean like how DNS works, where a _unique_ name resolves to a _unique_
address?

Without each side being unique, how would voice://John_Smith-00003475 be
better than a phone number? We already have address abstraction in the form of
contact avatars on our phones. Click John's face, then talk. And since this is
done locally, I know that a wrong number is just my fault and easy to fix.
Choose any reason why a central or even distributed resolution contains an
error and suddenly you're back to keying phone numbers just to make a call
while we wait for corrections to be issued by, whom, exactly? My parents don't
even know the difference between a cellular connection and a WiFi connection
on their phones, are they supposed to be responsible for their own online
contact records too?

~~~
axaxs
Well, just as yahoo or gmail do it. Even 'bigjohnfromcanada' or something
equally silly, but unique, is easier to remember than 10 or more digits. The
other challenges mentioned exist...but dns has served us well, and naptr
records already exist..m

------
Too
Just for fun, check out all the variants Nokia has tried out:
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ca/41/48/ca4148e6aeba457a6abd...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ca/41/48/ca4148e6aeba457a6abd3f07e265215e.jpg)

They have tried almost all the concepts from that bell study.

Especially interesting is 7610 optimized for thumb reach. Other funny ones are
7600, 3200, 3650 and Ngage QD

------
Stratoscope
The article talks about something I'm curious about: which hand you hold your
phone with and which hand you tap with.

I'm more or less right-handed - fairly ambidextrous for many things - but I
write with my right hand.

I always hold a phone or similar device with my left hand and tap on it with
my right hand, like the middle example in the three illustrations on the blue
background midway through the article (the one that it says 36% of users do it
this way).

It never once occurred to me to hold a phone with my right hand and tap on it
with my right thumb, like the leftmost illustration in that image (49% of
users).

If I do tap with my thumb, I still have the phone in my left hand and use my
left thumb.

I think this comes from my earlier days with pads of paper and a pen or
pencil. I wanted to write with my right hand, so naturally I held the pad in
my left hand and the pen in my right hand.

Of course I've always assumed everyone does it this way: hold the device in
your non-dominant hand and tap on it (or write/draw on it with a stylus) with
the dominant hand.

It's a total surprise to me that people would actually hold a phone or device
with their dominant hand. I guess it makes sense if you're always using it in
a one-handed manner, but for me it is just something that never even came to
mind as something to try. Since I'm holding it in my left hand anyway, if I do
use a thumb it will be my left thumb.

Not saying one way or the other is right or wrong, of course. I wonder if this
is one of those things where people fall into one of two (or more) groups, and
don't even know the other groups exist?

------
NikolaeVarius
This just sort of seems like DVORAK layouts to me. A possibility that it MAY
be more efficient, just not enough increase in efficiency to make it ever
worth it to change, especially in a world where there is no real evidence its
actually more efficient.

Also I find that doing standard dialing is pretty rare these days, and so low
mental load, that I think I wasted more brain cycles reading this than I have
ever just dialing a number.

------
jastanton
Maybe I missed something, but it seems like measuring the winner based on
average time of the first couple of samples is significantly flawed. This is
equivalent to me putting you in front of a keyboard with a normal layout, and
then a layout where the keys are scrambled and asking me to type a sentence,
and then measuring success by average WPM on all attempts. ... ofCOURSE i'm
going to be slower on the different layouts regardless on my first, second,
third, maybe even hundredth use. But 2 months down the road the benefits may
start rolling in.

It seems to be that a better way to measure results would be to create an
Android only app (iOS doesn't support swapping primary dialer). and getting
participants to use your dialer for a couple months, once you notice a new
baseline per user compare results between the various treatments.

Tl;dr unless I missed something! these results aren't going to prove anything,
other than familiarity rules.

All that aside -- I LOVE this! In the spirit of experimenting and trying to
improve on a very old concept, and creating an app to whip up some quick
results, very, very cool!

------
gregmac
Though I echo the sentiment about most phone number input is not done by using
the dial pad, there is still need to have a dial pad -- especially to interact
with IVR systems.

The telephone dial pad is as familiar as the QWERTY keyboard, and attempting
to change that -- especially for something that people use less than ever --
seems futile to me. That said, the underlying point of increasing screen sizes
leading to hard-to-reach dial pads is valid.

What I'm missing though is that to me there's a painfully obvious solution:
_make the existing dial pad smaller_. Nothing says it has to take up the
entire physical screen space. Take the existing, familiar layout, and resize
and reposition it to be within the "natural thumb arc" area. This does mean
different size screens need different layouts, but that seems like a trivial
detail.

~~~
jclardy
Yeah, a simple solution on iPhone is to just get rid of the full height "dial"
circle icon and make it a flat button, and shift the whole view down towards
the bottom of the screen.

------
r00fus
Interesting research.

I'd take a couple of thoughts.

Most of my dailing is done via voice, phone URL or stored contact.

Most of my time in dialpad is spent entering digits for automated systems
(e.g. "press 1 to join meeting" or "dial meeting code then #" or "press 0 to
talk to a receptionist").

What dedicated call vs. hangup buttons?

~~~
rexf
Great point about automated systems. Now I'm imagining a future where there's
better telecom integration so that the phone tree options are integrated into
the caller's UI.

For example, speaking to your cell phone company, you could see:

    
    
      1 [Billing] 2 [Account] 3 [Add a line]
      4 [Problem] 5 [Option5] 6 [Option6] 
      7 [Option7] 8 [Option8] 9 [Option9] 
                  0 [Operator]
    

This would be customized to whatever phone tree you're interfacing with.

~~~
boooooo
maybe the phone tree options could be described using some sort of markup
language.

~~~
zeveb
That's a clever idea, but I can so easily imagine a world in which a company's
malformed markup causes a buffer overrun in my phone.

~~~
_jal
Do you use a browser on your phone?

------
wpietri
The Bell System work strikes me as very valuable, in that a) they had a big
opportunity to make a lasting, universal change, and b) the number keypad was
a very frequently used element.

Here, though, I'm very suspicious. I worry that this is in the same category
as the designers who come up with yet another novel way of making a hotel
shower work. Is it really better? Probably not. And if it were, it's still
different than every other shower out there, meaning that most people are very
unlikely to gain the level of proficiency at which the benefits would kick in.

Pre-smartphone, I used the dial pad a lot, from 3 to dozens of times per day.
Now, I might use it a few times per week. So is it really worth the effort to
rework all these interfaces and retrain everybody? I'm skeptical.

------
ojm
Am I the only one who thinks it is ridiculous that a re-arranged dial pad can
be patented?

~~~
nathanaldensr
Nope. It was the first thing my wife and I thought when we saw the tiny
asterisked text under the second image.

------
sigsergv
Solving non-existing problem.

~~~
carapace
Yep. Total waste of time.

I'd be soooo happy though if phones and keyboard numpads had the same layout
(rather than being inverted horizontally. No preference for either, just want
them to be the same.)

Alas.

------
colanderman
Honestly, as an Android user, I'd be happy with a Dialer app that doesn't
crash, isn't slow to start up, and that, while in a call, actually generates
DTMF signals of a useful minimum length instead of only during the instant my
finger strikes the buttons. Hard-to-reach buttons is the least of my problems
with Dialer.

------
zw123456
Just a fun little anecdote here, a lot of metro areas have prefixes with a lot
of 1's and 2's because of the old rotary dial. Metro areas would get 221, 222,
and so on because if you dial 9, it takes longer on a rotary dial and people
were impatient. You see the remnants of it today in the old prefixes.

------
z3t4
Why doesn't smart phones now a day come with a stylus (small pen) ? You can
interact much faster and with better precision using a pen, compared to using
your fingers. Apps are designed to be used with clumsy fingers, with dumbed
down and over simplified user interfaces, there is so much potential left out.
I would like something like Windows 8, yeh you are probably rolling your eyes
now, but they where on to something, eg running the same os on a phone and pc,
and being able to quickly switch modes. My hope is that Linux one day will be
able to run on virtually any system "out of the box" turning smart phones into
small personal computers instead of _smart phones_.

~~~
cesarb
> Why doesn't smart phones now a day come with a stylus (small pen) ?

Some do (the Galaxy Note series). Having used a stylus with a PDA in the past,
I can also see the disadvantages: the stylus is easy to lose, and can't be
used one-handed.

------
azernik
> Steve Hoober has done studies on how we hold the phone. He suggests that
> most of us hold the phone from the bottom such that the base of our thumb is
> at the bottom right of the screen (considering 90% of population is right
> handed).

And then I referenced the graphical representation [1] of the study's results.

Y'all. 49% is not "most". 49% * 90% ~= 45%, so even less than _that_.

[1] [https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*RoVzWTb90D3fiEjlZ...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*RoVzWTb90D3fiEjlZsVe2Q.png)

------
syphilis2
I believe the problem is more general: touchscreen interfaces would benefit
greatly from a wild redesign study. Why does the Android menu pull down from
the top? Why does Firefox mobile lay tabs at the top of the screen? Why do
apps and websites put menu icons at the top? When I had a <4" screen it worked
fine, but on a larger phone I reposition my hand every time I reach above the
top 3/4\. That's for every unfortunately located app, every X box, every page
reload, every notification, every search query, and so on.

~~~
asteli
Came here to say something similar. The URL/nav bar on mobile browers should
really be at the BOTTOM of the screen.

~~~
ryl00
And it is with IE and Edge on Windows phone, funnily enough.

------
Entangled
Here is a mockup of a dial pad I'd be happy with. Can be easily flipped for
lefties.

[https://i.imgur.com/0G9aYCW.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0G9aYCW.jpg)

~~~
ssdesign
Thats a great one :) But I think that it needs to be shifted a little to the
left for right handed and flip and shift to right for left handed use. Because
the bottom right would be too hard to reach easily.

------
metaphor
To speak of dial pad redesign (with hints of _patent pending_ ) in the age of
smartphones is necessarily as debilitating as any fixed layout from
yesteryear. At least older devices had the excuse of being constrained by
technology of the day, mechanically fixed, and/or limited in compute.

A few user-selectable preset configurations + strictly user-defined option is
the only sensible direction. That this wasn't implemented 10 years ago
suggests a bit about its pragmatic value.

------
unkown-unknowns
I downloaded the app because I wanted to be of service, but I promptly
uninstalled it when It wouldn't let me continue unless I typed exactly 10
digits. In my country phone numbers are 8 digits. In some countries they might
have more than 10. Requiring exactly 10 digits is beyond ridiculous. Hopefully
it's just an oversight on the part of the person that made it. Uninstalled,
but willing to try it again if this issue is amended.

------
Jordrok
Huh... Am I the only right handed person who usually uses the phone with my
left hand/thumb? I've never really given it much thought before but I think I
do it so that my right hand can be free for any other actions or for precise
touch input when a thumb doesn't cut it. Maybe it's because I'm still using an
older, relatively small size phone? (Nexus 5)

~~~
pwg
No. I'm right handed, but also relatively ambidextrous and I often use my
phone in my left hand..

------
cooper12
This article starts off real nice, but the solutions presented are far from
what I would consider "re-thinkinking" the dial pad. Touch screens do not have
physical mechanisms, but rather are flat. So they need to rely more on
gestures. Re-thinking would require a new paradigm, just as how Swype make
typing on smartphones more efficient.

------
jFriedensreich
Isn't the main point that no one dials anymore on touch screen phones? You can
most of the time even click on a number in an email/website, you have all
contacts in your address book. Why would someone optimise a problem that is on
a past curve of technology? I would love to see this research put into text
input though...

------
bognition
Honestly I almost never use the dial pad anymore. Nearly all of my
communications on my phone are asynchronous: email, text, etc...

I receive more calls than I make, and when I do place a call I almost always
do so through my address book or favorites. So while I think this is a great
experiment I'm not sure its actually that useful.

------
makecheck
Actually kind of amazed they didn’t try simply moving the unaltered square
layout into a lower corner for easier access.

I am used to the _placement_ of the buttons too so having them in a square
pattern is important. Moving them around in any way without moving the entire
square cluster is going to feel awkward.

------
hw
Looking at the image of 'Thumb zones', it's interesting to note that on a lot
of apps (especially ones that deal with messaging), the submit/send button is
always on the bottom right, which can be straining on the thumb.

Interested to see UX where the send button is in the middle :)

------
dugluak
but in the smartphone era how many times do we type the number. usually
friends' numbers are stored in the contacts, any phone numbers found on
websites accessible through phone are tap and dial. I imagine you need to type
a phone number only when you find it outside your smartphone.

------
tzs
So according to Bell Labs testing, the telephone layout (123/456/789) beat
calculator layout (789/456/123).

That raises some questions.

First, _why_ is there a difference? For any given sequence of numbers both of
those layouts requires the same amount of movement, just mirrored around the
456 line. There should be no physical reason for one to work better than the
other, so it would seem it is something mental. What is that?

My guess is that it has something to do with our left to right then top to
bottom reading order. If someone speaks out loud the digits from 1 through 9
in order and you are asked to write them down in a 3 x 3 matrix as they say
them you will probably fill them in reading order, giving 123/456/789.

Second, it would be interesting to see what would happen if the order within
the rows were reversed, 321/654/987 vs. 987/654/321\. My guess is that the
latter would beat the former. It gives a less complicated sequence when
accessed in reading order.

Third, I wonder which layout would have won for calculators if the calculator
makers had tested like Bell Labs did. Let's assume it is a given that we have
to go with either 123/456/789 or 789/456/123, and just need to determine which
works best in a calculator.

With the phone all you need to operate it are the digits (the first touch tone
phones did not have the '#' and '*' keys).

With the calculator you also need the decimal point, the operator keys, and
'=' [1]. The layout of the digit keys needs to fit well with the layout of the
non-digit keys.

I'd guess that '=' is the most used key, with '+' the second most used. Third
is probably '-', although I'd not be shocked if it was 'x' because it will see
a lot of use in percentage calculations which might be common enough to put it
ahead of '-'.

Because '=' and '+' are so important, it makes sense to put them somewhere
that can be identified by feel, and the best place for that is probably one of
the bottom corners.

If that's where we put '=' and '+', then I expect calculator order in the 3x3
digit grid would win, because of Benford's law [2]. Calculator order would put
the smaller digits closer to '=' and '+' than telephone order would.

[1] or 'ENTER' if you are civilized.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law)

~~~
ssdesign
Thanks for such details, and I like your train of thought. One of the logical
reason why calculator layout was arranged the way it is (even today) is
because the mechanical calculators prior to digital ones had number 0 to 9
arranged from bottom to top (as shown in the image in my article). That said,
both the push button layout and calculators were designed for analog buttons.
So when we moved to digital interfaces and especially touch screen phones,
there should have been some kind of study done to analyse, does it makes sense
to continue using old mode of interface, or there is a need to design new
interface for new paradigm (Just how Bell Systems questioned it when the
modality changed).

Left to right and top to bottom does make logical sense, but is 3x3 the best
possible solution? Even if it is, should we not reconsider placing those
buttons in a more easy to reach position without compromising the muscle
memory that users have developed using this old layout?

The experiment so far is showing that it is possible, but I would wait and
watch where it goes :)

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

------
cordite
I wish I could participate, but the UI seems broken
[https://imgur.com/gallery/5yJxs](https://imgur.com/gallery/5yJxs) Numbers
going off the screen, and over other text.

Edit: it seems to work fine on iPhone but not iPad.

------
jansho
Makes sense to study where finger activity is most active on the phone screen.
I like Concept 1, it looks neater than the other "beehive" like structures.
Think a left-hand version should be easily configured from Settings, if this
is ever rolled out.

------
codazoda
I hadn't dialed a phone number in ages (months at least) until I started
developing a phone based website change recently. I just don't call people who
I don't know. I tap faces 99% of the time. I suspect many mobile phone users
are the same.

------
cbhl
I suspect that concept 1 is much faster than the baseline because the user is
getting used to the app -- if you add another instance of existing right after
concept 1, I hypothesize that you will find that the user does even better
than concept 1.

------
pishpash
Due to pocket utilisation, I've had my phone in the left pocket and so have
always used it left-handed. I didn't realize that phones were "handed."
Perhaps your problem is your phonebrick is too big.

------
mc32
Out of curiosity, I have not seen a design which swaps the positions of the 4
and 6 numerals --eliminating the carriage return number arrangement and follow
a meandering layout instead.

------
john_moscow
Except how often do you actually dial a number on your smartphone rather than
use the contact list, call history or tap on a phone number in the browser?

------
jtms
the infrequency with which I even use the dial pad on the phone really makes
me inclined to file this under "not broken, no need to fix"

~~~
curun1r
Right...if we're interested in UX, why are we still using numbers as a proxy
for who we want to call. Shouldn't we start typing letters and have previous
call recipients show up on top and suggestions from some search service show
up below? Computers are good with numbers...let them handle that part and let
us use language/words.

------
dreamfactored
Bigger phones in the first place was a monumental design fail. For the love of
god can we go back to phones which are comfortable to hold and use

~~~
dubcanada
My hands are big, and they hold the bigger phones probably the same as you
hold the smaller phones.

~~~
dreamfactored
I have no objection to these giant shoe size phones being available, just that
my only choice of phone now is an SE (and frankly I'd go back to iphone 4 size
if anyone brought out a top end small phone). I'd buy a maxed out nano version
of an X in a heartbeat at pretty much any price.

But what I'm really talking about is not myself but the thumb diagram in the
article. It seems extraordinary to design a consumer product that is known to
be uncomfortable. It's almost like the South Park It bike was released. I get
that there was optimisation for eyes at the expense of hands (and portability,
in a mobile device!) but the point of design is to balance constraints - it's
a definition of bad design throw half of them out of the window.

------
j45
I think I could see myself using the last one. Felt as natural to use as the
current dial pad layout is compared to it's options.

------
sporkologist
Maybe a resize widget on the current standard keypad would help for bigger
screens, rather than having to work with a new layout.

------
jccalhoun
back in the day Nokia wasn't afraid to experiment with some alternative
layouts: [http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/the-strangest-nokia-phones-
eve...](http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/the-strangest-nokia-phones-ever-
designed-gallery/)

------
taylorhou
concept-1 that is patent pending needs to use the bottom right space for the
backspace button. many times i find myself stretching or having to regrip the
phone to hit the stupid backspace because I made an error. no one patent my
improvement on the inventor's patent pls. kthnxbai =)

------
stretchwithme
The cool thing is that we could all have our own preferred layout or
experiment with many of them.

------
sirgg0119
best is concept 2 or 3 layout (for right handed person) except it should be
numbered 1 on the left and ascend numerically as it goes diagonally up and to
the right. ie the natural movement of the thumb.

------
leeoniya
and here i am with a 4.6" Z5 Compact [1] feeling sorry for those with
phablets. btw, the XZ1 Compact [2] just came out :)

these phones have monster battery life, and the same flagship specs of their
bigger brothers, less the high-res display. but at 4.6", 720p is plenty good
and also great for battery life.

[1]
[https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z5_compact-7535.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_z5_compact-7535.php)

[2]
[https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_xz1_compact-8610.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_xz1_compact-8610.php)

~~~
maelito
Xperia X compact is good as well. The plastic may feel cheaper and thicker
than other phones, but I view it as a cushioning integrated case.

~~~
leeoniya
the x compact was a downgrade from the z5c in many ways. i'm not certain i'll
be upgrading my z5c to the xz1 either since they finally got a mostly bug-free
Lineage build for it [1] - though i suspect much of this work will carry over
into the xz1, too.

[1] [https://forum.xda-
developers.com/z5-compact/development/rom-...](https://forum.xda-
developers.com/z5-compact/development/rom-lineageos-t3552242)

~~~
maelito
The X compact is unofficially water resistant (diving in the atlantic wasn't a
problem for mine), so I don't see how it is a downgrade in many ways (with the
assumption that it traded style for case resistance).

------
laurentdc
What does "OW" mean in those Thumb Zone diagrams?

~~~
jaclaz
Those diagrms come from here:

[http://scotthurff.com/posts/how-to-design-for-thumbs-in-
the-...](http://scotthurff.com/posts/how-to-design-for-thumbs-in-the-era-of-
huge-screens)

though even there I cannot find any explanation for "ow-space".

Maybe a reference to some game?

~~~
Retra
[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ow](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/ow)

------
libeclipse
> This hasn't changed in a long time.

> This is not because it is working.

Err...

------
usaphp
Side note - it's ridiculous how much space is wasted on medium blogs:
[https://i.imgur.com/Ac59Z2x.png](https://i.imgur.com/Ac59Z2x.png)

------
m-j-fox
Ok Goggle, call someone who uses the dial pad ever.

------
GuiA
Why are age, gender, and (particularly) ethnicity deemed relevant fields used
for tagging the data (but not things like handedness or hand related metrics)?

------
sboak
this assumes that phone numbers matter

------
subway
Too bad the timeline left off that time 1904 leaked I to 2003 with the Nokia
3650.

