Target Size Study for One-Handed Thumb Use on Small Touchscreen Devices
A collaborative project between University of Bremen and University of the Arts, Bremen.
We were remaking an experiment!
In the time when the users of mobile devices outnumber the users of desktop computers, we decided to remake an experiment by Pekka Parhi, Amy K. Karlson, Benjamin B. Bederson
Target Size Study for One-Handed Thumb Use on Small Touchscreen Devices. MobileHCI'06, September 12–15, 2006, Helsinki, Finland.
The question was: is the minimum button size still as big as 8 years ago?
Have people got used to small targets? Or?
Task 01:
Single Targets Task
The main objective of this phase was to determine the most comfortable target size for single-target interactions such as single buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons. We tested 5 button sizes: 3.8 mm, 5.8 mm, 6,8 mm, 7.7 mm, 9.6 mm.
Task 02:
Serial Target Task
The aim of this phase was to determine the most comfortable target size for serial target tasks.
Such situations could be typing on a keyboard or entering a sequence of numbers. The same 5 button sizes were tested: 3.8 mm, 5.8 mm, 6.8 mm, 7.7 mm, 9.6 mm.
Results
The results of our study show that for both types of tasks the minimum button size is 6.8 mm in comparison to the results 8 years ago: 9.2 mm for discrete tasks and targets of 9.6 mm for serial tasks.
Here you can read the entire description:
