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How about phones below 6"? The Nexus 6P or 5X for instance, a common use case I see is people trying to do quick things on their phone with one hand using the t

How about phones below 6"? The Nexus 6P or 5X for instance, a common use case I see is people trying to do quick things on their phone with one hand using the thumb for interacting with the screen, which if you have a phone in the 5-6" ballpark it is not easy to reach the top edges. This is where solid design comes into play, Tinder's ease of motion and placement of control buttons makes it easy to use with a single hand which means increased usage, thus creating a habit-forming loop, this is critical to Tinder's success.

kuschku 9y ago
The best software can’t fix broken hardware. Any phone above 4.5, maybe 5" device diagonal (not screen diagonal) is basically unusable single-handed. And this means that on such devices, people interact entirely different with UI. Which results in different UI paradigms. I’d have to either compromise my UI for users of smaller devices, or for users of larger devices. But in either case, users of larger devices will never get a truly awesome UI, as that’s simply not possible. (Either you waste space, or parts of the UI are just not reachable).
- jtolmar 9y ago
  Making part of the UI display-only is not wasting space. The problem with these phones is the insistence to push UI elements to the corners on touch screens even though original the UX motivation for putting important things in corners was that they're the easiest mouse targets.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    It’s not that simple. The usable space on a screen doesn’t grow much between a 4" and a 6" phone, because you hold your thumb further over the screen, and more parts are unreachable. And while one could move the content into the top-left or top-right (depending on handedness of the user), the result is so ugly users preferred a UI with less real estate over it in tests. With a 4" phone, the best reachable areas are the top and the left. Which is why Android 4.0 – which was right around the time when 4-5" phones became popular – moved all these actions into the top and left edges with the Action Bar and Navigation Drawer. With a 6" phone, those areas are unreachable, the bottom and the right are obscured by your hand, and the only area left for controls is the center – but you can’t really break up content around the controls either. The only solution that works partially are gestures, but those are very limited in what you can do, and are very inaccurate. If you have a better solution for a chat client in which a user might have 400+ channels open than using a navigation drawer (with search) on the left, content in the middle, and input at the bottom, then please present some. But currently, only for a small handful of apps the 6" problem is solved, and I believe that for many apps, it might never be solved.
    - kwhitefoot 9y ago
      > best reachable areas are the top and the left. Which makes it pretty much impossible to use _in_ your right hand while manipulating UI elements with your thumb.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        On a 4" phone, it’s perfectly possible. I have relatively small hands, but here’s a few photos: https://imgur.com/a/YIRAj https://imgur.com/a/YIRAj – 100% of the screen is reachable, and on all below 4.9" also with a firm grip. In contrast, on the 5.2" Nexus 5X, only with a loose grip is the left or upper part reachable, and the action bar’s up button is generally unreachable while holding the phone in a firm grip. On larger devices, such as the Nexus 6P (currently none here, so I can’t take photos), it gets far worse. Phone UI is designed for 4-5" devices, if you use larger, you have to live with that, but that’s your decision.
        tripzilch 9y ago
        Yes. Phones that are switched off are easily reachable almost anywhere. They also happen to have no active UI elements on the screen. Or visual feedback.If you'd switch it on, on that photo you you'd be long-pressing the (bottom-right) "back" key, and possibly generating word salad in any focused text input field. Almost nobody has issues holding a phone with the active display switched off.
        kuschku 9y ago
        I can also hold them for you while switched on without issue. I photographed them switched off because it was faster to do it this way, as otherwise I’d first have to power them on and set them up. But notice the Moto G (2014) in the album, which is on, and doesn’t show interference. Or,look at this helpful graphic Scott Hurf made http://scotthurff.com/images/posts/thumb-zone-2/thumb-zones-lineup.png http://scotthurff.com/images/posts/thumb-zone-2/thumb-zones-...
        balefrost 9y ago

kuschku 9y ago

The best software can’t fix broken hardware. Any phone above 4.5, maybe 5" device diagonal (not screen diagonal) is basically unusable single-handed. And this means that on such devices, people interact entirely different with UI. Which results in different UI paradigms. I’d have to either compromise my UI for users of smaller devices, or for users of larger devices. But in either case, users of larger devices will never get a truly awesome UI, as that’s simply not possible. (Either you waste space, or parts of the UI are just not reachable).

jtolmar 9y ago
Making part of the UI display-only is not wasting space. The problem with these phones is the insistence to push UI elements to the corners on touch screens even though original the UX motivation for putting important things in corners was that they're the easiest mouse targets.
- kuschku 9y ago
  It’s not that simple. The usable space on a screen doesn’t grow much between a 4" and a 6" phone, because you hold your thumb further over the screen, and more parts are unreachable. And while one could move the content into the top-left or top-right (depending on handedness of the user), the result is so ugly users preferred a UI with less real estate over it in tests. With a 4" phone, the best reachable areas are the top and the left. Which is why Android 4.0 – which was right around the time when 4-5" phones became popular – moved all these actions into the top and left edges with the Action Bar and Navigation Drawer. With a 6" phone, those areas are unreachable, the bottom and the right are obscured by your hand, and the only area left for controls is the center – but you can’t really break up content around the controls either. The only solution that works partially are gestures, but those are very limited in what you can do, and are very inaccurate. If you have a better solution for a chat client in which a user might have 400+ channels open than using a navigation drawer (with search) on the left, content in the middle, and input at the bottom, then please present some. But currently, only for a small handful of apps the 6" problem is solved, and I believe that for many apps, it might never be solved.
  - kwhitefoot 9y ago
    > best reachable areas are the top and the left. Which makes it pretty much impossible to use _in_ your right hand while manipulating UI elements with your thumb.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      On a 4" phone, it’s perfectly possible. I have relatively small hands, but here’s a few photos: https://imgur.com/a/YIRAj https://imgur.com/a/YIRAj – 100% of the screen is reachable, and on all below 4.9" also with a firm grip. In contrast, on the 5.2" Nexus 5X, only with a loose grip is the left or upper part reachable, and the action bar’s up button is generally unreachable while holding the phone in a firm grip. On larger devices, such as the Nexus 6P (currently none here, so I can’t take photos), it gets far worse. Phone UI is designed for 4-5" devices, if you use larger, you have to live with that, but that’s your decision.
      - tripzilch 9y ago
        Yes. Phones that are switched off are easily reachable almost anywhere. They also happen to have no active UI elements on the screen. Or visual feedback.If you'd switch it on, on that photo you you'd be long-pressing the (bottom-right) "back" key, and possibly generating word salad in any focused text input field. Almost nobody has issues holding a phone with the active display switched off.
        kuschku 9y ago
        I can also hold them for you while switched on without issue. I photographed them switched off because it was faster to do it this way, as otherwise I’d first have to power them on and set them up. But notice the Moto G (2014) in the album, which is on, and doesn’t show interference. Or,look at this helpful graphic Scott Hurf made http://scotthurff.com/images/posts/thumb-zone-2/thumb-zones-lineup.png http://scotthurff.com/images/posts/thumb-zone-2/thumb-zones-...
      - balefrost 9y ago