Users, in general, for every portable touchscreen device, prefer to touch the center of the screen.
In a recent test I performed, people naturally moved a list of content to the center of the screen before selecting it. When you account for content position and different devices, you find that most taps are in about the center half of the page. DUPE OF BELOW?
We keep re-confirming this, and what you are seeing is the actual data from a study I performed recently. These are the actual tap positions when users selected items from a full-screen scrolling list. They naturally moved the content to the position they could tap, then I recorded the position. This also reflects other data on tap accuracy and preference.
[CLICK] And when you account for content position and different devices, you find that most taps are in about the center half of the page.
If you wonder about tablets, they are surprisingly similar so that data is embedded into this data viz.
So, you might think that when you copy the UI for something like Twitter, the key controls are the actions and input at the top and bottom of the viewport. But in fact the primary content and interactive area is in the middle of the page. All these content-centric tools are already based around the user’s primary behavior of viewing and tapping the center of the viewport. The other functions are secondary options.
...Discuss new Google Material design stuff, such as maps, as an example of another way to do the center. You can bring the functional buttons off the edges, towards the middle of the screen as Android 5 is doing now…
SUB
And I mean it when I say “center of the screen.”
No caveats of “as long as they can reach it.” So don’t pay attention to these charts.
I can find no evidence those are true. This is the way I observe people click. Very tiny, oddly-shaped areas are tapped mostly with one hand, and as I just said people shift their grip, a lot, and have no trouble getting to the rest of the screen.
This is one reason that larger phones aren’t a disability. Thumb reach is not really a thing.
If that’s not enough for you, this is a study done Just Last Week by Mikkel Schmidt of the time to tap on various little squares on an iPhone 5 screen while holding with one hand, and tapping with the thumb only. Oh, look, even then the center is faster, corners are worse, and there’s no indication of sweep ranges here either.
And because it’s time to tap /accurately/ and people indeed were observed missing and retrying, it also shows accuracy by zones.
“Last Week” is October 2014: https://medium.com/@mibosc/mobile-ui-ergonomics-how-hard-is-it-really-to-tap-different-areas-of-your-phone-interface-bb043d409af8
Phablets are Mobile
I’ve read many articles lately that tell us the new iPhone 6 series will force all of us to change the way we approach UI design for mobile phones. Well, it may for designers who still focus only on iOS and pretend the rest of the world does not exist.
But large-screen, portable devices have been around for a long time, and those of us who design for every platform have been considering them in our designs since at least 2011. In fact, larger, touchscreen, handheld devices were available as far back as the Apple Newton, with its 5.25-inch screen. So far in 2014, about a third of all the smartphones sold have screens that are over 5 inches on the diagonal—even before Apple got on the large-screen bandwagon. Not just worldwide sales either. Even in the US, large-screen phones are a huge force, so you can use information about how people use them today.
Ever since Samsung created the large-phone market with their Galaxy Note line, people have called these devices phablets because they fill the size gap between traditional mobile phones and small tablets. And since these devices first appeared on the market, both UX designers and technology reporters have mocked not only the name, but the concept. But take a look at the comparison of mobile-device sizes shown in Figure 1.
As you can see, phablets are now becoming part of the new normal. As UX designers, we have to assume that people’s mobile devices—their primary communications devices, which they carry around in their pocket or purse—may have a screen of any size ranging from around 3.5 to 6 inches.
And Tablets, Too
Expand this or grab info from People Touch the Center of the Screen to discuss how much we know about them, and how similar they are. ...
Conclusion
Even though it seems to be subconscious, or maybe learned, users prefer to touch the center of the page, and will do so when given a choice.
* Place key actions in the middle. * Secondary actions along the top and bottom. * People will shift their grip as needed. Place key actions in the middle half to 2/3rds of the screen, and place options, and secondary paths along the top and bottom of the screen.
Figure 2—Whenever given the choice by scrolling to select items, people will choose the center of the screen. They will also tend to select labels, not just rows, so there is a notable left-side preference.
References
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