How does a user hold a mobile device?

Absrtact: As user experience professionals, we are very concerned about the needs of users. When designing mobile devices, we realized that we had to focus on something extra, such as how the environment in which the user was using the device changed its interaction or usage patterns

As a user experience professional, we are very concerned about the needs of users. When designing mobile devices, we realized that we had to focus on something extra, such as how the environment in which the user was using the device changed its interaction or usage patterns. Not so long ago, however, I noticed a gap in our understanding: how do people actually carry and hold their mobile devices? These devices are different from the computers that are placed on people's desktops. Instead, people can use mobile devices while standing, walking, riding, or even doing anything. Users need to hold the handshake in some way to make sure they can not only see the screen but also enter it.

Around the past year or so, there have been a lot of discussions about how users can hold mobile devices-especially Josh Clark. But I suspect that some of the discussions we've been reading may not be on track. First, we see a lot of assumptions--for example, everyone is holding a handshake, because the size of the phone is just right for holding, well, at least the iphone. Many of the discussions assume that people are the same and cannot adapt to different situations, and that this is inconsistent with my experience in any field involving real people, not to mention the unexpected ways people use mobile devices.

Over the years, I've mentioned in research and observation on mobile devices that people use multiple ways to hold a handshake, not just a single hand. But some of my data is very old, so it contains a lot of information about the hardware input methods used to use the keyboard and key-driven devices that accommodate the limited reach of the thumb or other fingers. These old-fashioned phones are very different from the touchscreen phones that many people now use.

Modern mobile phones are different, and everything changes with the touch screen. On today's smartphones, almost the entire front is a screen. Users need to be able to see the entire screen, and also need to touch any part of the screen for input. Since my original data is mainly from the lab's observation of the user, most of which use keyboard-centric devices, I need to do some new research on the current device. My data needs to be even more airtight, both in terms of data size and test environment.

So I did a new study of how people naturally hold and interact with mobile devices. After two months of the study, which ended on January 8, 2013, I and several other researchers conducted 1333 observations on the use of mobile phones in streets, airports, bus stops, coffee shops, trains, and any other places where they can be observed. Of these, 780 people are touching the screen to scroll, type, click, and use other gestures to complete information entry. The rest are just listening, watching, or talking on the phone.

My data can't tell you anything, and before I go any further, I want to emphasize what I can't get from my research data. I did not record what everyone was doing, because that would disturb them too much. Similarly, there was no demographic data on the users in the study, and I didn't try to identify their phone models.

Most importantly, we do not calculate the total number of people we meet. Please do not use the total number of observations we observe and think that at some point n% people are using their mobile phones to type. We can assume that most people have mobile devices, many of which we cannot see, or that people do not interact with their devices during our observations, so we have no way to record this data.

Because we observe in public, we see a small number of tablet devices, so these are not part of the dataset. The most devices we have observed in the dataset are the Samsung Galaxy Note 2.

What we know is that over 40% of our observations are that when users interact with a mobile phone without using keystrokes or on-screen input information, Figure 1 shows a visual data from our observations.

(Figure 1: A summary of people holding a handshake and interacting with them.) )

View Complete data:

In the original published website view.

Download Excel table view.

View in Google Docs.

22% of users use mobile phone for voice calls, 18.9% of users are engaged in passive activities, they mainly listen to music, but also a part of users watching video. We only put the phone in the ear of the user behavior as a voice call, so we must be some of the call behavior as a seemingly passive activity.

The users we observe in touch screens or keystrokes hold their phones in three basic ways:

Single-hand operation-49%

Cradle type (one hand grip, another operation)-36%

Hands operation-15%

Although most of the users we observe use a one-handed touch screen, there are still a large number of users using other methods. Even the least used method, the use of both hands, is enough to allow you to consider the design.

In the next section, I'll use graphs to describe and display the various ways of holding a mobile phone separately, and to provide more details and general observations about why I think people use a particular way to hold a handshake.

In Figure 2 to Figure 4, the graphic shown on the phone screen shows a rough range of touches, with different colors representing areas that the user can touch when using the thumb or other fingers to interact with the screen. The green area means the user can easily touch, yellow indicates that touching the area requires stretching the finger, and the red area indicates that the user needs to change the way they hold the grip to reach it. Of course, these areas are only approximate and different for each individual, depending on how the user holds the handshake and the size of the phone.

The user changes the way of holding the handshake machine

Before I elaborate on the details, I would like to point out the limitations of another method of data collection that we use. The way a user holds a handshake machine is not a static state. The user is very frequent the change holds the way, sometimes in a few seconds change. Users change the way they hold a handshake seems to be related to their shifting tasks. Although I can't tell exactly what they're doing when they change the grip, sometimes I can see the screen over their shoulders, or see the gesture they're making. Click, scroll, and type these behaviors look distinctly different, so it can be easily differentiated.

I have observed this situation many times, users use a single hand random scrolling screen, and then use the other hand to touch the additional area, and then switch to the hands of the operation to type, and then change back to the cradle click More buttons, that is, no longer use the left hand type, and then change the hands of the Similar interaction behavior is very common.

1. One-hand operation

Although I thought it was a simple situation to hold and operate the mobile phone, the 49% of users who use one-hand operation use a variety of gestures to hold the handshake. Two of these are shown in Figure 2, but a single handheld handshake may also have other postures and modes. Left-handed hand to do the opposite action.

(Figure 2: Two ways to hold a touchscreen phone in one hand)

Note: The position of the thumb joint is higher in the right image. Some users seem to think about the area they need to touch to place their hands. For example, a user would take a mobile phone in a way that is more likely to hit the top of the screen rather than the bottom.

Single Hand Operation:

Right Thumb touch screen--67%

Left Thumb touch screen--33%

I'm not sure what caused these partial chiral data. The user ratio of left-handed operation in a single hand operation user appears to be inconsistent with the ratio of the left hand in the total population, especially in the –21% ratio of left-handed users to the very different cradles, with a ratio of about 10% left-handedness in the total population.

One-hand operation seems highly correlated with the user being doing other tasks at the same time. Many one-handed users are doing other things when holding a phone in one hand, such as carrying a bag, keeping a balance on the way, climbing stairs, opening a window, holding a child, and so on.

2. Two-hand cradle

The cradle is my way of saying that those who use two hand-held mobile phones but touch the screen or key with only one hand, as shown in Figure 3. The 36% of users who use the bassinet are divided into two different ways, with thumb and other fingers. Putting the phone in two hands, like a cradle, provides more support than a one-handed operation, and allows users to use a finger to interact with the phone more freely.

(Figure 3: Two ways of the cradle type.) )

Cradle Type:

Thumb Touch Screen--72%

Other Finger touch screen--28%

For thumb usage, the user simply adds a hand to stabilize the handset based on a single hand operation. A smaller proportion of users use a second cradle, they can hold a handshake with one hand and interact with the screen with another finger. This is similar to how people use stylus on mobile devices. (We have only observed 6 people using stylus on mobile devices, so they are not treated as separate types in the dataset.) )

Cradle Type:

Left hand--79%

Right hand--21%

Interestingly, people often change movements between a single hand operation and a cradle type. I think this is sometimes when people are thinking about environmental security, such as walking on the side of the road or being hit by a pedestrian, but sometimes for a finger to touch a screen area outside the normal range.

3. Hands operation

We are accustomed to connecting our hands to typing on all keyboard devices such as blackberries or sliding out keyboards. In this observation, the hands of users accounted for 15%. As shown in Figure 4, in both hands, users use their hands and fingers to ring the handshake machine and use their two thumbs for input, much like they do on a desktop keyboard.

Hands operation:

Vertical,--90% in portrait mode

Horizontal, in transverse mode--21%

(Figure 4: Hand operated vertically with a handshake machine and horizontally holding the handshake machine)

People often transform in both hands and in the cradle, where the user is typing with two thumbs, and then simply no longer uses one of the hand inputs, and the recovery uses only one thumb to interact with the screen continuously.

However, not all thumbs are used for typing. Some users seem familiar with using two thumbs or just one thumb to click on the screen. For example, a user might scroll the screen with his right thumb, and then click on the link with his left thumb after a moment.

It is also noteworthy that although the theoretical Pro keyboard area is easier to type, the vast majority of devices are used vertically, or in portrait mode. However, most slide-out keyboards Force landscape mode. All mobile phone holding methods are usually adapted to the vertical positioning of the phone, but in both hands, the use of horizontal mode is lower than expected. Still, some of my customers have received complaints from the App store that they don't support landscape patterns.

What is the point of these discoveries?

I think someone would suggest that one-hand operation is the ideal way to operate, and that a single hand operation is a sure thing to win when designing for almost half of the users. But it's not as simple as it seems to me.

Some designers may interpret a single hand-operated graph as having to place minor or dangerous features in areas that are difficult to reach in the upper-left corner of the screen. But I don't recommend it. If the user sees the key at the top, switch to the cradle to make it easier to touch all the features on the screen? Or do they just always like the cradle?

While we do not understand why there is such a large percentage of right-handed preference, we cannot assume that people will hold a handshake with their left or right hand. When targeting browsers or mobile device operating systems, I often feel uneasy about anything that ignores more than 5% of the market share. This is a common baseline for me, but I will adjust this value for individual customers or products. But I would never, nor ever ignore 20% to 30% of the user base. I personally am the extreme right hand, and now that I have this data, I am spending more time focusing on how the interaction is done when using the left hand.

Another factor that is not fully considered until I put these graphs together is that the size of the screen is obscured by one finger when the handshake is used. The display interface occupies the vast majority of the surface of the device, which may also be a reason for users to constantly change their grip mode. As designers, we should always be aware of what's on the entire screen that may be obscured by the user's fingers. Just remembering to click on the screen finger will block the button's label is not enough.

Now, my tendency to test my user interface design on my device is more intense than ever before. Whether I design a product prototype, a screen image, or proportionally printed on a paper prototype, I would put it on a mobile device or similar size object, and then use all the holding methods that the user might use to try to make sure my fingers don't block important content, and that the keystrokes the user needs to use are not difficult to reach.

Next plan

I don't think this is the ultimate study of how users hold a mobile device, and I'd like to see someone do more work on it, even if I'm not the one who implements it. It would be useful if you could get some detailed data on how many people change their phone holding mode (that is, from one-handed operation to cradle to both hands). It would be useful to get the exact percentage of how many users like each type of phone hold. Is it not entirely clear that all users will use these three kinds of phone holding modes at different times? It is also useful to determine which holding mode is more appropriate for a particular task. Because of the significant correlation between the task and the holding mode of the handset, we can speculate on the possible device holding mode for a particular type of interaction, rather than making possible false assumptions based on our own behavior and preferences.