
How to Design Mobile Apps for One-Hand Usage - sitajay
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2020/02/design-mobile-apps-one-hand-usage/
======
mojuba
Years ago I made an attempt at a UI that wouldn't even require repositioning
the phone in your hand: the buttons are literally under your thumb (if you
forgive my shameless self-plug):

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/futurecalc-futuristic-
calculat...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/futurecalc-futuristic-
calculator/id1078127612)

~~~
krsdcbl
I remember this being a thing for sometime, years ago as you said - always
found this approach very interesting and resulting in beautiful and diverse
UIs.

Sadly this trend seems to have faded away together with the rejection of
skeumorphism and the advent of "design systems" (eg component lib based
design)

~~~
Fnoord
Back then the UIs and OSes were less set in stone. Nowadays we have two mobile
UIs: iOS and Android (while there's also the gesture-based SailfishOS [1]).
Just like everyone's a Qwerty user, which isn't necessarily the most
efficient, even on mobile (example [2]). Problem is, you can only deviate so
much from the defaults/standards.

[1]
[https://sailfishos.org/design/gestures/](https://sailfishos.org/design/gestures/)

[2] [https://keybee.it/](https://keybee.it/)

~~~
G4E
No, not everyone is a QWERTY user. French are AZERTY[1], we are 70 millions.
There is a really small fraction of the population able to type on QWERTY.
Germans are QWERTZ, they are 86 millions. Scandinavians have their own QWERTY
variation, where a lot of symbols are mapped differently.

There is a whole world outside there, you know ? :)

I agree with you on the point that those are not the most efficient layout
nowadays though.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZERTY)

~~~
mojuba
Even the UK keyboard can drive you nuts if you are an engineer and you are
used to the US one. The Enter key has a different shape, the backtick and the
backslash are placed differently.

------
oflannabhra
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 system wide swipe-from-left-edge has
helped).

I've been pretty disappointed that Apple has not pushed harder in this area,
has kept this first party by not updating native components, and has not
updated their HIG. We've had to move to third party libraries. It has been at
least 3 years since they started using this paradigm.

~~~
elldoubleyew
I don't know if its still the case or not, but a lack of a system wide swipe-
from-left-edge to go back was the primary reason I couldn't use Android a
couple of years ago. Having to move my thumb down to the back button just
always felt so unnatural and clunky.

I really hope this is fixed now in newer versions of Android.

~~~
sprobertson
Not sure about other models but the Pixel 4 has done away with that bottom
button bar entirely in favor of gestures. Swipe from the left to go back, from
the bottom to go home.

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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.

~~~
dfxm12
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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kohtatsu
Android's browser way back when (c. 2011?) had an amazing option for this;
you'd swipe from the edge and a radial menu would appear where your finger
was. Could do everything from back, forward, refresh, to opening the url bar,
to switching tabs, and even saving and navigating bookmarks.

Honestly it's the still pinnacle of cute and clever UX for me.

Edit: Found it~ It was Settings > Labs > Quick Controls
[https://cdn57.androidauthority.net/wp-
content/uploads/2012/0...](https://cdn57.androidauthority.net/wp-
content/uploads/2012/08/android-browser-popup-menu2.jpg)

~~~
smacktoward
Radial menus are underappreciated in general. I used to use an extension for
Firefox that provided access to most common browser controls (Back, Forward,
Reload, etc.) via a radial menu, and found it made my browsing experience feel
much quicker and more fluent.

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jschwartzi
While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed.
Since you’re probably right-handed anything you put within reach for yourself
will be difficult to reach for southpaws.

~~~
Fnoord
> While you’re at it remember that 20% of your user base will be left-handed

Try 10%.

"Studies suggest that approximately 10% of the world population is left-
handed. [...] Studies suggest that approximately 90% of the world population
is right-handed." [1]

The same webpage also suggests that in e.g. sports, left handed people are
overrepresented and have an [at times severe] advantage.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness)

~~~
Jaruzel
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 day.

~~~
Fnoord
> 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 of others).

In my youth, I knew a guy who'd cross his arms while gaming (he was left-
handed). This was approx 1995. Quite clever. He was using the mouse with his
left hand, and the keyboard with his right. It _worked_ for him (he was a
decent gamer). He adopted, though it looked weird.

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

Ok, Fair enough :)

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orangepanda
> 90% of the smartphones sold today have bigger than 5-inch displays.

I want a smaller display but they're just not being made anymore. For the past
few years if you wanted better specs, you _had_ to get the bigger model.

iPhone SE still being in demand indicates that there's a market for people who
want smaller phones, if given the choice.

~~~
opencl
What exactly do you mean by "in demand"? Obviously the demand is not zero but
all of the evidence points to it being a tiny fraction of the overall phone
market. If the SE was actually wildly popular I doubt they would have stopped
making small phones.

Sony was the only company making smaller Android phones for years (last model
introduced 2018) and their marketshare was plummeting pretty much the whole
time. Then they stopped making them presumably because very few people were
buying them.

~~~
saagarjha
> Obviously the demand is not zero but all of the evidence points to it being
> a tiny fraction of the overall phone market.

We’re a small but very vocal fraction of the market :)

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jbverschoor
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

~~~
phn
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.

~~~
sefrost
I was dependent on reachability with a 6S. Recently upgraded after that phone
became unusable and I'm suffering the same problem as you.

I have about a 20% hit rate with reachability now. So if anyone has any tips
please do share them.

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Dunedan
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 bummer.

I wonder why the smartphone manufacturers don't at least offer a single device
small enough to allow one-hand usage. There just has to be a market for that,
given how many people complain about large phones.

~~~
jakub_g
My previous phone - Asus Zenfone - featured the one-hand mode, where you scale
whole viewport down and move it on the screen as you see fit. See this image:

[https://www.technokick.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/DSCN79...](https://www.technokick.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/05/DSCN7927-Copy.jpg)

Maybe not beautiful but it was practical in some cases.

More vendors should ship things like this. But the companies value fake visual
niceness over usability so I'm not holding my breath.

~~~
davweb
iOS has Reachability[1] which is a similar solution the same problems.

The problem with solutions like this is that they are often hard to discover.

1: [https://support.apple.com/en-
gb/guide/iphone/iph77bcdd132/13...](https://support.apple.com/en-
gb/guide/iphone/iph77bcdd132/13.0/ios/13.0#iph145eba8e9)

~~~
dillonmckay
I find it interesting that it is supported on a 6s, but not an SE.

I assume it is because the screen is the ‘correct’ size on the SE.

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z3t4
With my old smartphone (Nokia N9) I could reach anywhere with my thumb as the
screen was so small. No surprise that my new "phablet" is much harder to use
as I constantly have to change grip, and hit stuff by accident.

Before the N9 I had a Windows Mobile 2003? And even though it had touch
support, it was designed to be used with a stylus. With a stylus you need two
hands, or a table, but you can reach anywhere on the screen, and the pen is
very accurate, so you can have higher information density. Android nor iOS is
designed to be used with a stylus though. Modern phones have the same screen
resolution as desktop monitors, so in theory using a stylus/pen (and sharp
eye-sight) you could have the same user interface on the mobile as on the PC.
Also writing on a virtual keyboard using the stylus is not that bad, although
not as fast as typing on a keyboard, but faster then typing by touch.

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alxlaz
Ah! Yes! Oh wow I love this!

Many years ago, back when everyone was just discovering smartphones (we used
to call them smartphone back then, now we just call them phones...) and
figuring out that widgets need to be larger in order to be easier to touch, I
was having a beer with a colleague who was doing design back at the time and
we were making an inventory of all the ways that this is going to change
things.

And we thought this was going to be one of them, and we had the math to prove
it! Fitts' famous law considers all axes of motion equal -- i.e. it's a model
that describes moving horizontally, diagonally, horizontally or anything in-
between as equally difficult.

This isn't the case for phones, especially not when they're used with a single
hand. Horizontal motion at the bottom of the screen is very hard, because your
thumb just don't bend that way. So is vertical motion on the right-hand side
of the screen (for right-handed users -- left-hand side for left-handed
users). Diagonal motion is easier because, well, that's how the thumb bends.
It's not just about the difficulty of making the motion happen -- the motion
is inherently imprecise (this is what Fitts' law effectively cares about, not
necessarily the amount of physical effort).

We tried to sketch a "revised" model but it was a little unwieldy to plug into
the beautifully-logarithmic Fitts equation. I think I still have that
notebook.

Unfortunately, we never pursued it further. I'm a lowly programmer and not
really interested in UX design anymore. My colleague was so burned out by
academia that he didn't want to touch anything even vaguely resembling a
research project with a ten-foot pole and I didn't even dare suggest
publishing something 'cause I sort of valued our friendship.

However, it's something that's been lurking in the community for a while. I've
mentioned it every once in a while, and almost every time I've heard something
along the lines of "huh, I think I've seen this, too, I wonder if we could
make a useful UI like this".

Turns out you can and it's finally happening!

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robertoandred
How about we design phones for one-handed usage? Phones have been too big for
years and years now. There are simply no options for a reasonably sized phone.

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k__
Hm, doesn't seem right.

My thumb can't reach the other side of the screen when I'm holding it with one
hand.

The lower yellow space is where my thumb can reach best.

~~~
Double_a_92
Same. I don't have the biggest hands, but the when holding the phone with my
right hand, the only area that is comfortable to reach is near the bottom
right corner. That green "peak" on the top left definitely doesn't exist for
me.

Tbh I'm not really able to do any interactive thing on my phone with just one
hand. No matter how good the UI is. Reading news from a scrollable list, or
swiping through pictures are the only things that are doable for me. Maybe I
really have small hands? ._.

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jessriedel
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.

~~~
cryptozeus
Which version? Their entire menu is at the bottom

~~~
jessriedel
Android. The setting menu is upper right hand corner on the home screen, and
the triple-dot menu is upper right hand corner while a song is playing.

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turtlebits
I really miss the jog dial on phones, specifically the ones on Sony Ericsson
phones, which allowed for “click” and the left/right tilt. Perfect for
scrolling content and list traversal.

Always wonder why no phones use them anymore.

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elcapitan
I would already be happy if app designers (and mobile web designers) wouldn't
put the buttons on top of the screen, where I can barely reach them most of
the time.

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swiley
I so wish phones had relative touch mode where the portion of the screen not
covered by the keyboard acted like a trackpad.

It's not sexy but it's (IMO) much more ergonomic.

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Gys
Very interesting. I was thinking if implementing a fly-out might be a good
idea and reading this really helped to decide.

~~~
maitrik
Glad you found this useful! :) Half-screen flyout menus has the power to beat
thumb accessibility challenges.

