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Re-designing the smartphone Dial-Pad
A UX research project to re-think the touchscreen smartphone dial-pad.
This article is about the UX research that I am doing. The research website is located at: http://ssdesigninteractive.com/dialpad_research/
and
The related app is at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dial-pad-ux/id1288812537
Update: A new version of the app is now available (V 1.02). This will allow you to download this app for iOS 10.
Let’s start by looking at the timeline below:
There is something important about the image above. Despite significant transformation in the ergonomics and the modality of the phones physical form factor, the dial-pad design seems to have remained unchanged since 1963.
So, looking at the image, one may question — Why did the Push Button phones changed the dial button positions from a circular arrangement to a different layout? (Even when the form factor had not changed significantly)
The answer can be found in the short introduction below.
Introduction
On 18th Nov 1963, Bell System introduced the touch tone phone to the world. The touch tone pad replaced the old rotary dial.
This touchtone dial-pad was not only different from its predecessor, but was also completely opposite of a very similar and popular layout of the calculators.
You can find a complete history and the science behind this decision on 99percentinvisible, but for the purpose of this post, what is important to note is that when Bell System asked the Texas Instruments and Sharp about why the calculator layout was designed the way it was, they said they did not conduct any research to define the calculator layout. They simply took the cue from the mechanical calculators (like the one shown below). These calculators had numbers 0-to-9 arranged from bottom to top.
