Solving the big screen ergonomic problems with an email app redesign
June 2015
Embedded Files
My Role:
Ergonomic studies, Contextual Inquiry,
Task flow breakdown
Business case presentation, Storyboard ,
Concept development, Prototyping using Marvel-app, user testing,
Introduction
Introduction
iPhone gave away their philosophy of keeping the sizes of screens below 4 inches. In the absence of a back button, the question of navigating the apps got real
iPhone gave away their philosophy of keeping the sizes of screens below 4 inches. In the absence of a back button, the question of navigating the apps got real
To remain with the market, Apple had to take a BOLD step of increasing the screen size
Problem statement
Problem statement
Big screens mean more space. That's what people thought. however, with iOS design philosophy, a bigger screen meant using both hands to interact with the phone!
Big screens mean more space. That's what people thought. however, with iOS design philosophy, a bigger screen meant using both hands to interact with the phone!
Ergonomic Research
Ergonomic Research
A research was conducted with the new iPhone 6+ and 10 volunteers who were dying to get their hands on the new iPhone. The volunteers were carefully selected so as to include the shortest (4'11") and the tallest (6'3") employees.
While performing the tasks, even the tallest person, with the longest thumb could not reach the back button on the top left corner of the screen.
NOTE: apple did provide the ability to swipe down on the button to access the actions on the top, but that defeats the purpose of having a big screen in the first place
After I also stumbled upon the research conducted by Luke W and found the study conducted with over a thousand people to establish the usage pattern of a 5.5-inch screen. the green zones are natural. orange ones are slightly difficult to reach, whereas the red zones are difficult to reach (hence marked OW!)
To tackle the usage problems with ever-increasing screen sizes, I came up with a small pet project to redesign the email client. The basic problem statement was to make all the functions accessible.
Following screens and text explain the result
Why email?
Why email?
email is the second most common use of a smartphone when it comes to working professionals.
emails are read and responded to while on the move, mostly calls for one-handed operation
emails have been the primary way of communication and shall remain so for a long time.
Solution
Solution
The most prominent and revolutionary change that was made in the design was to bring all the controls to the bottom. to make the emails more accessible, it was decided to have the latest email at the bottom of the list. search and compose were brought neatly the thumb. compose CTA was deliberately pushed to the red zone so as to avoid any accidental taps.
NOTE: the change of bringing the latest email at the bottom was not agreed upon by the users during the testing. in the digital world, people are habitual of seeing the latest event first. unlearning this could have taken some practice.
The entire menu was also brought at the bottom and was made horizontally scrollable. The purpose of this was to ensure that all the actions in the menu are within reach. The conventional drawer style menu lists item vertically, at least a few of them could have gone beyond the reach of a single-handed user
two swiping gestures were added in the mail client, so as to provide the maximum number of options right upfront.
NOTE: the use of more icon with three vertical dots wasn't a convention yet
The sole focus of this exercise was to facilitate the users to use the email client on the go, with a single hand.
many people use their phones with the left hand as well. Hence comprehensive settings to change the orientation of the app from left-aligned to right-aligned were provided.
New whatsapp
New whatsapp
Conceptualized in July 2015
Inspired by the bottom navigation email, a redesign of the highly used WhatsApp was also attempted. This too worked on similar principles but had a few new features like pinning a chat and importing favourites from your google contacts.
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