Interfaces Supporting One-Handed Use of Small Devices
posted Apr 1st 2007, 15:38 under interaction, one-handed, research
Mobile phones today usually support one-handed interaction. You can use two hands to speed up some tasks but most operations can be completed using only one finger or hand. PDAs on the other hand, usually involve two-handed interaction with their touchscreen and point-click actions. Generally one hand is used to hold the device as the other one act as a controller (actuating, moving and pushing buttons).
It is a sure bet that we will see a lot more touch screens appearing in mobile phones over the next few years (iPhone and such). Sure they have some advantages (customizable interface) but also present some challenges. I won't go into details here but I just want to mentioned this nice research done by the HCI group at the University of Maryland. Their work was presented at CHI 2005 and it involves developing interfaces to support one-handed use of small devices.