If you’ve ever had to move your iPad from one hand to the other just to tap a button you couldn’t reach, then you may have already guessed why we began this study in our UX lab.
Our Mail.Ru Group’s UX lab team carries out many usability studies of our apps for smartphones and tablets. We address users’ needs by introducing features in our products. We carefully test all of the functions to ensure users notice and understand them well. Nevertheless, this was the first time we had looked at the physiological aspect of our app’s usage.
We came across several studies dedicated to the physiology of using iPads, but they were all scientific, rather than practical, and quite far from business needs. Moreover, such studies were performed on smartphones alone, excluding tablets.
So, we decided to analyze the physiology of using the interface of Mail.Ru’s Email app; for example, how comfortable is it to use an iPad app in typical positions? The behaviors we studied included tapping buttons while lying down, browsing photos while sitting, swiping, and writing text. Our results revealed a number of purely ergonomic problems that should be taken into account when developing any iPad app.
First time was published here.
Continue reading How To Make A Physiology-Friendly Application For The iPad
