How to make your cell phone screens more efficient for onehanded operation:
Some people like to load up as many Apps on as few screens as possible for various reasons.
Onehanded swiping skills:
One common reason is to reduce having to execute a onehanded swipe to move from screen to screen. Some people accomplish this by using folders to try and load even more apps onto one screen to eliminate multiple screens. If you’re a person who always has two-hands free then you will never have to develop one-handed phone skills, but for most of us, onehanded skills are needed.
Tapping:
Efficient Onehanded thumb tapping is dependent on two things, how close the App your reaching for is to your thumb, and the size of your hand.
For people with large hands, Apps on your hand side of the page are going to be the hardest to tap. ie., Apps on the right side of the screen for righties and the left side of the screen for weird people, you know, lefties.
If you have small hands then reaching the far side of the screen may be difficult.
The point is that the side of the screen closest to your thumb and the far side of the screen for small-handed people should not contain Apps that are going to be accessed most often.
Identify your range of motion:
Don’t try to outsmart your thumb.
Most people can easily reach three rows and three columns with their thumb.
I am assuming your screen is set to 4 columns and 5 rows including the docking row. The docking row is the bottom row that is the same on all your screens.
Hold your phone in your hand, and note where your thumb is most comfortable. Chances are, it’s near the top-middle of the phone. Now determine how many apps can you tap easily. This is your thumbs range of motion and you should use it to establish the Primary Target Area for your most commonly accessed apps on each screen. Your lesser-used apps and all folders should not be in the Primary Target Area.
For me, it’s the second, third and fourth rows, and the left and middle columns.
The Home Page/Screen
The red box represents my Primary Target Area. I can easily reach all 6 of the Apps in the top two rows of this area. The third row of this area (white box) is the swipe zone. I leave this empty so that I can swipe without accidentally opening any Apps. The App outside of the Swipe Zone on the right side is not likely to be accidentally touched when I swipe because I have problems tapping in the fourth column because of the size of my hands. You know what they say about guys with big hands, don't you… "Big hands mean big gloves."
If you have a more deft touch than me you could probably make your swipe Zone smaller… making more space in the Primary Target Area for other Apps.
The black-bordered area is outside of my target area. This area is awkward for me to reach so I stick my visual Apps (Time and temperature) folders, and seldom accessed Apps in this area.
The yellow box is the docking row. Here I place my apps in the order of most likely to access going left to right.
The Middle Pages/Screens
My middle pages follow the same layout as my Home Page except for two differences:
1. The Swipe Zone is larger because, on the Home Page and the last page you are only swiping in one direction but on the middle pages, you will be swiping in both directions.
2. More importantly, the Home Page and the last page are usually where you initiate your first swipe, but if you have multiple pages you could be doing rapid repetitive swipes increasing the probability of accidentally opening any apps in the first or last column.
Also, note that I have my Messages App straddling the Primary Target Area and the non-primary target area (the red and black-bordered areas). The Messages App, the Hey Google App, and the Swipe Zone together are too big to fit in the Primary Target Area. By putting the Messages App partially in the Primary Target Area I can still swipe down and tap to access my messages without pushing the Hey Google App out of the Primary Target Area.
The Last Page/Screen
The Last page layout is identical to the Home Page except for the direction of the Swipe Zone.
By identifying your thumbs range of motion and establishing your Primary Target Area, limiting the Primary Target Area to your most accessed Apps, and establishing a Swipe Zone you ensure yourself a safer one-handed phone operation when it is needed. By using folders and placing them and your seldom-used Apps outside of the Primary Target Area you still can reduce the number of pages/screens you have on your cell phone.
About folders:
If you're going to put folders in your primary area then realize that there is a primary Area on all screens. So just create a new page and spread that folders contents over the new page's Primary Target Area.
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Copyright © 1992-2020 Glenn D. Littrell, www.glennlittrell.org
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