I was playing around with my iPhone this one day and somehow I started to notice, that whenever I turn the screen to landscape mode I always turn it the same way I always do. Most of the games support landscape mode in both directions (just turn it around 180 degrees and the view will rotate around), until I opened this one game called Uber Racer, which immediately started upside down (according to position I was holding my phone). I tried to shake my phone, wondering if maybe the accelerometer was stuck or something, but then I realized that the game was programmed that way and I had to turn it around to play it. At that point I realized, how important it is to be able to turn the view in to current phone orientation, as it didn’t feel right for me.
So what am I talking about here, is that our so-to-be symmetrical devices are also affected by our left/right-handedness. I myself am a right-handed person, and I noticed that I always tend to use my left hand to hold the phone and my right hand to navigate on the touch screen (or press the home button). Also when I turn the phone, I always tend to turn it counterclockwise while holding the bottom of my phone with right hand and the top or back with my left. Is this just a coincidence or is it leading somewhere?
So here is a little poll I’d like to propose:
- Are you left/right handed?
- Which direction do you mostly turn your smart phone (tablet)?
- Does it annoy you if you have to turn it the opposite way than you usually prefer?