On one-handedness, hamburgers, and pivots

[manicottiK]

Since the Windows 10 Tech Preview for phones, we've all spent lots of time arguing the issue of one-handedness and if it is even a goal of Microsoft as they develop universal apps. About an hour ago, Microsoft posted A First Look at Building Windows 10 Universal Apps, a video from February's Mobile World Congress. At precisely the 17:00 mark in the video, Kevin Gallo, the person leading the Windows 10 developer platform effort, said "On our phone [platform] we've optimized around one-handed operation because most of us who use a phone prefer to use one hand a lot of the time."

The video also shows the splitview control (aka, the hamburger menu) AND pivot controls. Indeed, one of the samples that they show has both controls at once. (Clearly, the mail app is moving away from pivot because they want the horizontal swipe gestures to use usable by the app itself for flagging and deleting mail rather than switching tabs/panels.)

This would seem to be a pretty strong statement about their goals. I'm pleased that they are aware of the need and say that they are working on in. It remains to be seen how well they'll satisfy this goal with the finished software.

 

[Spectrum90]

All the phones are optimized for one-handed use, specially when compared to tablets and PCs.

In general, I like what their doing. They're using common sense, moving things where they produce the best result for the user. Not blindly enforcing an absolute set of rules that produce impractical results in many cases.

 

[Kram Sacul]

It's good to know a few people at MS are still thinking of one handed usability. The OS was built on that concept and it should only improve with W10. Of course all of this means nothing when they decide to make apps look and function more like mobile websites with buttons at the top and a dumb hamburger menu button in the upper left corner.