Touch to scroll
Moving through Copenhagen the other day I noticed something we all do, but maybe rarely think about: we scroll and scroll and scroll through feeds. Often with one hand, which means with our thumb. And not only that. We are kind of manic while we do it:
- Quickly scroll down, to the next post.
- Break with thumb:
- Look at post for 0.0451 seconds. (absolutely not data we have from any reliable valid source, but test for yourself)
- Decide whether post is interesting or deserves some interaction (to like or not)
- Reactivate thumb to scroll to next post.
- If Brain = too fast to decide about the irrelevance of a post: scroll back up, and restart at 3.
Smartphone thumb anyone?
This goes on and on and we all have to agree by know that we have become people of the screen. Whether that is a good or bad thing is not for this article to discuss. But the thing is: scrolling with your thumb hurts. After a while you can get some serious pains all the way from your nail to the head. Texting is not helping this, but neither is scrolling.
Touch n’ Hold to the rescue
We gave it 5 mins thought, and it did not take long to come up with a simple idea, that could be implemented easily in the touch-sensitive home button of the iPhone 5 and 6, or in the software of apps like Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.
We propose to have a spot where you can just hold your thumb and the page would scroll. Tap once to jump to the top of next post could be interesting on Facebook and Instagram. Double tap to jump to the previous post. So instead of moving your thumb up and down the screen, you just hold it ever so softly. Lift it if you want to stop, press lightly if you just want to jump forward.
Pressure or movement sensitive
On iPhone 6 this could be pressure sensitive, so you decide whether you scroll fast or slow. On other phones you could just have an invisible joystick-kind of feature, so if you hold it scrolls, and if you then move you thumb downwards, it scrolls faster. Full power to the user without the sore thumb. Apps could also leave the botton out of the screen and just have the home button act like your scroll botton: you touch and hold to scroll. Tap to jump. Press to close app.
We are positive this could save the society millions in wasted hours at the doctors with people complaining about smartphone thumbs. National happiness would increase. Users would hug and kiss more. It is user experience that make a difference :)
Jesper
Granyon.com