Coming to Grips with the iPhone's Two-Handed UI
Is one-hand control better than two? For years that's been the design around smartphones. And that's the way we've used a variety of smartphones. However, Apple went its own way and designed a UI that, unless you have some pretty flexible fingers, requires two hands to operate.
"Everyone is still trying to make a one-handed product," Rolston said. "It's the easiest way to distinguish a truly portable device from a workstation. Handhelds are about doing something else (while using the handheld), they fit within the context of people's active lives."
To achieve those goals, one-handed phones have to have real buttons--famously dismissed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs--that give people the ability to feel their way around a keypad, said Gadi Amit, founder and principal designer of New Deal Design. "People are getting so visceral with their phones; they can pick up the phone in the middle of the night and know what button to hit."
To achieve those goals, one-handed phones have to have real buttons--famously dismissed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs--that give people the ability to feel their way around a keypad, said Gadi Amit, founder and principal designer of New Deal Design. "People are getting so visceral with their phones; they can pick up the phone in the middle of the night and know what button to hit."
Granted many iPhone users are in love with their devices, but it has always been our opinion that hard buttons make it easier to operate cell phones without looking - either in a car or at night - and that is easier and safer, particularly with the car example. Many in the article feel there will be some sort of backtracking by Apple on its no-keys policy, and although users may adapt to the current paradigm, there is no denying that under certain circumstances there will always be a distinct advantage to hard keys.
