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Post by grävling on Mar 10, 2017 6:53:43 GMT -5
When designing an interface that is intended to be used primarily by mouse-clicking, you put your mouse in your dominant hand and it doesn't matter all that much whether the control structures sit on the left on right hand side of the screen. There is a slight improvement for people whose language reads left-to-right (most of us) if the controls are on the left, at least for the first time of use, as the left is where such people start looking for things. But the improvement is miniscule.
Things change a whole lot when the intended audience is using a touch and not a mouse interface. Then any improvement you get based on where your language says 'a new paragraph starts here' is completely swamped with 'what hand am I going to use to press the key'. You don't want your users to cover the screen with their hands as they touch navigation buttons. The larger the screen, the worse the problem is. Thus right handed users want the controls on the right hand side of the screen, while lefties like those buttons where they are now. It would be nice if the interface could automatically mirror itself. Given the preponderence of right-handedness in the population, on touchscreens the default ui should have the buttons on the right, but lefties will definitely appreciate it if you can flip it for them.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 10, 2017 9:46:50 GMT -5
Lots of interesting thoughts on this. The prevailing UX direction in mobile right now, for landscape, is to focus on the thumb touch regions.
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Post by grävling on Mar 10, 2017 11:41:09 GMT -5
For people who want to re-capture the Nintendo/PlayStation 1 etc experience, thumb touch regions on a not-too-large screen is a way to go. But it breaks badly when the screen gets larger. There is no way that I could use my left thumb to use the navigate buttons in ST2, even if my thumbs were in good physical shape, which mine are not. Too large a screen, and too small thumbs.
If the user has limited thumb mobility, from arthritis, for instance, or if, like me you have just managed to dislocate your thumbs on a few occasions, you may find that 'use the thumb' is a deal-breaker. It is for me. There is absolutely no mobile game which uses the thumbs for navigation which I am willing to play at all. It is the first thing that I check for, and if the game has it, I request the refund (if I have paid for it) and delete the game. But then, I have dislocated my right thumb 3 times and my left one twice, so I think I am an outlier here, unless there are more extreme-sports types hanging out around here who haven't announced themselves. It's a fairly common skiing injury, and alas aggrevated by bad technique, so if your technique contributed to this happening to you once, chances are it will get you _again_ unless you learn better technique faster...
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 10, 2017 12:02:19 GMT -5
We still might move some of the UI around. That's why we're alpha testing.
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athios
Templar
[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 1,611 
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Post by athios on Mar 10, 2017 13:07:01 GMT -5
Very interesting topic. Yes, it really hinges on the size of the device. Will people will holding with both hands, or on transit holding their phone with one hand? If the latter, then it may be better to have the buttons on the bottom. I agree it's great if the interface is configurable (i.e. pick what you want), but I'm guessing that will require a lot more work to setup/test/support.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 10, 2017 14:24:52 GMT -5
We just didn't have a big enough Kickstarter to afford multiple interface builds. We've got stay within our scope or the game won't get done.
We will keep trying to improve!!!
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Post by grävling on Mar 10, 2017 14:31:29 GMT -5
Well, a good question to send out and ask the alpha testers, at least the ones on mobile, is 'do you use your thumbs?' -- always, sometimes, never.
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Post by ntsheep on Mar 10, 2017 14:31:37 GMT -5
I am left handed and have always had no trouble using a mouse with my right. The only time I ever had a problem was when Ubuntu switched the UI. That took some getting use to.
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Post by ChocoCrowbar on Mar 10, 2017 16:11:21 GMT -5
I use my thumbs on mobile.
Have had no problems. I actually enjoy the fact that on mission screens you can tap the options and not specifically the button to choose, and since the option crosses the screen I can use any hand I want.
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Post by bookworm21 on Mar 10, 2017 19:24:47 GMT -5
I have a 4" screen and so thumbs do me just fine  |
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