Ipod designed by a right hander?
January 30, 2008 9:29 pm TestingMy fiance gave me a 3rd generation ipod for christmas. Its pretty sweet. I like the coverflow feature. I spent waaaay too much time download covers and updating album names.
Today was the first day I took the ipod out for a run. One thing I love about the old is one hand navigation. I had no reason to believe this one would be different. But….it is.
Let’s do a little usability experiment. If you have a new ipod then hold it in your right hand and toggle the position of the lock.
Now switch it to you left hand and toggle the position of the lock.
Is there a difference? Yup.
Is it harder to do with your left hand than your right? Definitely
Does it make one handed operation of the ipod impossible? Yes - unless you employ both hands or do some fancy manipulating with your left hand.
You might have guessed that I’m left-handed. I can hear all the right handers saying in their sympathetic tone - suck it up.
Normally I do but this little quirk seems silly coming from a company that is supposed to be leading edge in design and usability.
From my vantage point this is a huge usability bug. I can no longer operate my nano with one hand.
I wonder if apple has any left handers on their design/usability/test team 
AW :
Date: February 6, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
Hey Adam,
Saw you in G&M and looked you up. Can you drop me an e-mail?
Eric :
Date: February 7, 2008 @ 1:08 pm
Great post! Apparently the usability testers for scissors had that test case. What’s up with Apple? Maybe Mr. Jobs should take note of this.
Eric Jacobson
Areeb :
Date: March 5, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
Well, I don’t know about Apple, but after I read this post I saw a similar usability bug on the that I bought recently.
All the menu buttons are on the right and really cannot be used at all from your left hand unless you were to flip the player upside down.