[Satire] I Like the New Menu Placement!

[Don Geronimo]

For a while discussions and UX have been a forefront in discussions, with the Hamburger menu and Android look-alike the common scapegoat used to bemoan the new changes. Change is hard, true, but I welcome it.

Why? Because I'm left handed. I'm sympathetic to a point to the dominant majoritarian view that current positions and design thought no longer cater to the majority. However I'm not that sympathetic. Cry all you want that things are so much harder now with one-handed use; they've always been hard for me, with things placed in the upper-right or the ellipses in the lower right, forcing me to stretch my southpaw thumb uncomfortably to a side of the screen that's easier for, and explicitly catering to, the dominant majority. I guess, too, that I'm also in the minority that is capable of a one-handed shift from top to bottom to move my thumb where it needs to be--whether I'm using my 1520 or my 635 in a one-handed operation. They're skills I need to adapt to a righty world, but I digress.

Any road, thank you so much, Microsoft, for being so brave as to accommodate my needs, which have always been second banana to the righties of the world, and letting the majoritarian populace learn the pains of awkward thumb movements. Perhaps from this lesson compassion and open-mindedness to other design considerations, and other considerations present in normal life for all, will spread far and wide.

 

[Laura Knotek]

LOL!

I'm right-handed but I always hold my phones in my left hand, and I'll use them left-handed if I'm using them with one hand. I've done that, so I can use my right hand for something else, such as writing. I can use a phone with my left hand, but I cannot write with my left hand.

 

[DCTF]

I'm left-handed but I hold the phone in my right hand. I assume you'll both burn me as a witch in your new society. Payback? Perhaps, but what of JUSTICE?

 

[Charles Brown8]

Being a leftie in a right handed world can be a pain.... everything is laid out backwards unless you are fortunate enough to be in a position to rearrange things to your tastes lol (which is not often)... I hope I get to try the new UI soon as its not available for my phone yet....

 

[Don Geronimo]

I assume you'll both burn me as a witch in your new society.

[Satire]We're glad that frustrations are now shared throughout the dominant majority, but heavens, no; we're not savages.

However I do bemoan that you had to learn to use your phone like... that because your phone was never tailored to how you would normally use it.

 

[DCTF]

[Satire]We're glad that frustrations are now shared throughout the dominant majority, but heavens, no; we're not savages.

However I do bemoan that you had to learn to use your phone like... that because your phone was never tailored to how you would normally use it.

Ha! No, I'm just mixed up. I write, draw, and play musical instruments left-handed, but I use cutlery, phones and computer mice like a right-handed freak.

 

[Charles Brown8]

Ha! No, I'm just mixed up. I write, draw, and play musical instruments left-handed, but I use cutlery, phones and computer mice like a right-handed freak.

LMAO!!!! I play sports and such left handed but eat, write, play guitar right handed too funny

 

[N_LaRUE]

LOL!

I'm right-handed but I always hold my phones in my left hand, and I'll use them left-handed if I'm using them with one hand. I've done that, so I can use my right hand for something else, such as writing. I can use a phone with my left hand, but I cannot write with my left hand.

We're the same I see.

I'm messed up anyway from a young age. I broke my right elbow and learned to write with my left. I am dominantly right but play hockey left, bat right, throw with either. I hold my phone in my left hand 99% of the time.

 

[PepperdotNet]

All of this just demonstrates why OPTIONS are needed.

Not everyone uses every device in the same way, so things need to be configurable.

 

[someone2639]

For a while discussions and UX have been a forefront in discussions, with the Hamburger menu and Android look-alike the common scapegoat used to bemoan the new changes. Change is hard, true, but I welcome it.

Why? Because I'm left handed. I'm sympathetic to a point to the dominant majoritarian view that current positions and design thought no longer cater to the majority. However I'm not that sympathetic. Cry all you want that things are so much harder now with one-handed use; they've always been hard for me, with things placed in the upper-right or the ellipses in the lower right, forcing me to stretch my southpaw thumb uncomfortably to a side of the screen that's easier for, and explicitly catering to, the dominant majority. I guess, too, that I'm also in the minority that is capable of a one-handed shift from top to bottom to move my thumb where it needs to be--whether I'm using my 1520 or my 635 in a one-handed operation. They're skills I need to adapt to a righty world, but I digress.

Any road, thank you so much, Microsoft, for being so brave as to accommodate my needs, which have always been second banana to the righties of the world, and letting the majoritarian populace learn the pains of awkward thumb movements. Perhaps from this lesson compassion and open-mindedness to other design considerations, and other considerations present in normal life for all, will spread far and wide.

Might be satire to you, but this describes me well.

 

[Don Geronimo]

Might be satire to you, but this describes me well.

I intended the tone to be satirical, with some real-life objective experiences I've found in my own experiences, and what I've noticed with my personal circles who also happen to be left-handed (I'm actually right-dominant ambidextrous). While I knew that others must've experienced this pain, too, I didn't plan on an actual post verifying the experience.

In essence, this is exactly the reason I made this post. Hamburger Menus and Android Look-alike are simply the scapegoats to this entitled and other-people-insensitive statement: "How dare they make things more difficult for me and how I use my device." Entitlement has no power on its own, but buried under the guise of bad UX and copycat thought (specifically in the realm of Windows Phone, I make this statement), it possesses more power, and has the convenience of stealth; nobody, after all, would want to admit that statement explicitly.

Sure, as @PepperDoNet says, there can be made options to where things are placed, but that puts a lot of workload for a developer, who now has to ask, "How do I even consider making a UX when the elements change and can be moved by the user of my app? The business logic is hard enough; now not only do I have to create a UX for this form factor, I have to re-create it in as many variations as a user might want it?!" Isn't that statement filled with entitlement as well and a lot of uncare towards anybody that already has a full workload in making something good?

Folks may not be happy about the ways things are moving, and it's good that we're having conversations, but entitlement isn't exactly a reason why something should remain as it is. There are explanations as to the 'why's of that statement--Microsoft's stance, for example, is for consistency across their entire brand as a One Windows. If a person's main gripe is about the hamburger menu or about making it hard to reach, I ask: even before Hamburger menus became a thing in WP's Visual Lexicon, how often, really, did you have to go into the ellipses each day once your workflow was set up?, and Have you ever thought about the lefties?

 

[Laura Knotek]

We're the same I see.

I'm messed up anyway from a young age. I broke my right elbow and learned to write with my left. I am dominantly right but play hockey left, bat right, throw with either. I hold my phone in my left hand 99% of the time.

I throw right, bat either, rake leaves left.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[DCTF]

I throw right, bat either, rake leaves left.

Same here. Rake leaves with the left, rake coals, money and muck with the right. It's the only way to live.

 

[Asskickulater]

I intended the tone to be satirical, with some real-life objective experiences I've found in my own experiences, and what I've noticed with my personal circles who also happen to be left-handed (I'm actually right-dominant ambidextrous). While I knew that others must've experienced this pain, too, I didn't plan on an actual post verifying the experience.

In essence, this is exactly the reason I made this post. Hamburger Menus and Android Look-alike are simply the scapegoats to this entitled and other-people-insensitive statement: "How dare they make things more difficult for me and how I use my device." Entitlement has no power on its own, but buried under the guise of bad UX and copycat thought (specifically in the realm of Windows Phone, I make this statement), it possesses more power, and has the convenience of stealth; nobody, after all, would want to admit that statement explicitly.

Sure, as @PepperDoNet says, there can be made options to where things are placed, but that puts a lot of workload for a developer, who now has to ask, "How do I even consider making a UX when the elements change and can be moved by the user of my app? The business logic is hard enough; now not only do I have to create a UX for this form factor, I have to re-create it in as many variations as a user might want it?!" Isn't that statement filled with entitlement as well and a lot of uncare towards anybody that already has a full workload in making something good?

Folks may not be happy about the ways things are moving, and it's good that we're having conversations, but entitlement isn't exactly a reason why something should remain as it is. There are explanations as to the 'why's of that statement--Microsoft's stance, for example, is for consistency across their entire brand as a One Windows. If a person's main gripe is about the hamburger menu or about making it hard to reach, I ask: even before Hamburger menus became a thing in WP's Visual Lexicon, how often, really, did you have to go into the ellipses each day once your workflow was set up?, and Have you ever thought about the lefties?

YOU SIR, you get it. thank god there are people like you who do get it. (not satire)

 

[lcpljones]

Being a leftie in a right handed world can be a pain.... everything is laid out backwards unless you are fortunate enough to be in a position to rearrange things to your tastes lol (which is not often)... I hope I get to try the new UI soon as its not available for my phone yet....

As a right handed person that was raised in an all left handed house....everything was laid out backwards. I hated it!

Back on point....I love the setup as I use my phone with my left hand (thanks Mom). This way I can find something pertinent on the phone and jot it down with my right hand. Best of both worlds I suppose.

 

[b0blight]

Well, the new menu placements help me ! I can use my phone left-handed when I am having my... "happy" time. :winktongue: