Calling All Left-handed People! Thoughts & Suggestions on Smartphone Navigation?

[AntS]

Hi all,

A suggestion came in from an S10+ user via our Mobile Tech Support team:

"Customer called regarding wanting the alphabet icon on the contacts moving from the right hand side of the device to the left hand side. this is due to the customer been left handed and struggling to scroll through the contact list on his S10+"

Pic of the 'alphabet icon' that user was talking about:

I'm not left-handed myself, but got me thinking if this struggle is something more of you left-handed folks out there experience - and not just with the Contacts app. 

So, please share your experiences, thoughts and suggestions on this in this thread! 

[Booboo]

Hi I am left handed, but not really sure what the problem is. I manage to scroll ok. With the smart phones I think you have to learn to use both hands as I do. 

[reikar]

Being a right hander I agree with BooBoo. I use my phone a lot with left hand. I think it's so, because I mostly use mouse with right hand in my job, so to counter the fatigue, I've grown to use phone on the left hand

[JAMES4578]

Would be good to hear  perspectives of more left handed users, as some may have issues.   I'm right handed and tend to use that on the phone, though use both hands on a computer keyboard.

[Adi0]

Well I'm left handed but somehow in single hand I use the right hand dominantly. The option I'd suggest would be to bring an option (from Developers options) in Advanced features to revert phone to the left side in all apps, menus... 

[Lorikelli]

Left-handed, I am. We still live in a predominantly right handed world, that being said- I find numerous area's within my S9 that I wish were more left handed -'friendly'. Such as picture taking, or needing to search within an app, or click the 3 hamburger dots...as phones get larger, having small hands & left handed, makes some features unusable with one hand. Most lefties have acclimated to some level of ambidextrous. 

[SjorsK]

I'm left handed and bought a note 10+ that will arrive in two days (Because I will be home by than Its more about the positions of the icons ).

Will see what I can do but please tag me if I forget.

This might be slightly too easy but might it be an idea to add a left handed mode? That effectively reverses the icons. 

(Just ignore the reversed text and reversed icons). 

The easiest way to make phones left handed friendly is simply reversing things horizontaly   

[seryosongoso]

Left handed user here! I didn't really have an issue with this back when I was an iPhone user mainly because it was an iPhone 6 which is pretty small by today's standards. So my apologies if I make a lot of iPhone comparison just because that's what I've had experience with until my current phone.

However, when I switched to a Note 9... oh boy. Having a big screen is one thing but having icons you can't reach across the screen is the big deal for me. ONE UI did make things easier to reach things so the challenging ones are usually the apps.

One Hand Operation + again, being used to an iPhone, I didn't really appreciate being able to swipe back from anywhere to trigger a back action until it wasn't there anymore. I also didn't realize that this was more convinient left handed users since the trigger is on the left of the screen. 

Reassignable button in general, this is what I loved about android is that there are options to reassign even the basic buttons so it works better for either or righ handed people.

Spotify - this is not just specific left handed experience but on the iPhone, they use a lot of gesture. Like when you are playing a song, you don't have to reach all the way to that upside down caret that looks like a V to minimize the screen. I think this is why gesture in general is a great UX.

Google Podcast - Everything is not just on the right, but they are waaaaaaay on the right. Having teeny tiny icons doesn't help either.

If I have just one suggestion for better left handed experience, it would be to make an experience that makes handedness irrelevant. Having things on the right isn't so bad if they're still within reach. If I can just swipe instead of trying to reach for that tiny button on the other side of the screen, then it doesn't matter when I'm using my left or right hand.

[SjorsK]

I do agrees that thuis is more an issue on larger phones.

Here is an example of what I would change in the calendar app and the usability issues as a left handed person.

[Piggy]

Totally agree. Lefty on a Note 10+ here.  Granted I have small hands and have to use this phone two handed the majority of the time, small things would definitely make my life easier. The mention of having the images on the opposite side for a left-hander would mean a lot less streching or even two handed use, especially for someone with smaller hands. Android has started to drop menus lower on the screen for easier reaching, so why not make it 'swappable' too?

I suppose it depends 'how left handed' you are. But i'm very left handed.