Mobile UX Is Finally Moving In The Right Direction…And My Cats Agree
When I get home after a long day at work, I always look forward to greeting my pets, plopping on the couch and watching TV. Like a majority of humans, I have two arms. While one hand is holding my phone looking for something to watch, the other is busy scratching behind ears and throwing toys.
I recently noticed that my cats change their behavior depending on which streaming site I use. They sit away from me when I watch YouTube, but on my lap when I watch Netflix… Is it possible that my cats are too old to understand YouTube? Is that why they keep headbutting my phone?
Upon further investigation, I noticed that the menu and search in Netflix’s app are at the bottom of the screen; whereas, YouTube’s — and most other mobile apps’ — search and navigation are at the top of the screen.
While I’d like to think my cats are just particular about UX, I realized my thumb can’t reach key functions with most apps, requiring me to use both hands to search or navigate, leaving my cats affections unrequited.
In YouTube’s defense, they do have the navigation buttons at the bottom, but I feel like the search should be down there as well.
Looking at this heat-map below, in green are the areas we can easily reach with our thumbs. So why do app designers still place the vital functions all the way in the red area?
The general school-of-thought is that the main menu has to be at the top of the screen so it’s the first thing that a user sees. The same applies to the search bar.
The designers at Netflix broke this convention, at least for the navigation menu, and I commend them for it. I thank them for taking this risk for us, and I urge more designers to do so. Now will they dare move the search bar to the bottom as well? I really hope so.
As Netflix is used by tens of millions of users around the globe, perhaps this new pattern will become dominant in the near future. It’s about time. Just think how happy our pets will be; and let’s be honest, nothing matters more.
