Warnings on iPhones come in a different couple flavours. There’s the blue dialogue box that mentions how a person has surpassed their 100 twitter api calls per hour or mentioning that there was a loss of internet connection. There’s also those red pop up’s that cover the corner of an app mentioning how many “things” are inside to be clicked. I think those red dialogue boxes have been there from the beginning of the iPhon UI. As I was looking at them I kind of wondered why they were placed on the top right of the app? Was it more likely that there would be action taken if a red box popped up there. Why not on the left side, people read from left to right—maybe they flipped a coin… I’m not sure but looking at them this morning I wondered how that decision was made.
While looking at those red pop up’s I also noticed something else. There was a distinct pattern that I was clustering my apps. Curious to see how they fit together I blocked out the shapes to see the areas where my thumbs were pressing. As it happened I noticed five distinct categories of use. Task, photo, physics, reading, sound and communication. For the most part these groups came together organically. Taking a look at those patterns gives me a pretty good indication on how I use a mobile device that connects me with anything I want.
With that info in hand I figured I could map out the areas that I press the most. I could see how the proximity of my left and right thumbs related to usage on a daily basis. Each corner had varying degrees of importance while the middle was the least used.
My second screen is a lot more disorganized, but it’s not used nearly as often as my default first screen. Do you have similar usage patterns or do you have a unique system for the apps you use the most?
