
Brands all over the world have, at some point, transformed or thought about transforming their standard websites into responsive ones. The whole idea of having a responsive website is that it can host your products and services while re-adjusting itself to function on many devices without compromising the functionality, lowering user-experience and affecting the effectiveness.
However, mobile-interface pundit Steven Hoober decoded a new way forward when it comes to making your website more user-friendly. He introduced the idea of ‘The Thumb Zone’ – the most convenient area to touch while operating phone using a thumb.
What’s known as ‘restrictive navigation’ impacts more loss to businesses than one can ever imagine! In a restrictive navigation based design, the icons, CTA and functionalities are lying in the hard or stretching area.
(Source: Smashing Magazine)
According to ‘The Thumb-zone’ rule, the green space in the image above is the free-moving areas where an average mobile user’s thumb can navigate effortlessly. The area in yellow and red are what you need to avoid in order to make your users more interested in using your website. Let’s focus on utilizing ‘The Thumb zone’ to engage more and more users on your website.
The Thumb zone- Breakdown
To completely understand ‘The Thumb-zone’ means to realize the need to have a deeply engaging website that lets customers and traffic on your website to manoeuvre effortlessly on your page. This might sound outrageous, but imagine the different sizes of screens your customers use worldwide. Now imagine the average screen size which you can use as a reference to make a website more user-friendly. But to be honest, it does matter because more than half of all the mobile users in the United States prefer single-handed operation. The green, yellow and red zones will differ from person to person depending on the device they are using, their prefered hand, size of the thumb along with factors like time spent on the phone.
Before addressing the issues, let us take a look at the variables as well. Talk about users who have bigger phones like iPhone plus series, have different areas of use.
Being in ‘The thumb-zone’
Being in ‘The Thumb-zone’ does not mean you compromise the interactiveness and smoothness of your website. It is about being smart. Below are some examples of creative web development.
The bottom-centre of the mobile-phones- Cellphones are entirely different if you consider the user behaviour. If you want your visitor to take the CTA, then this is the area you need to focus on.
Enhance links and buttons– It is smart to have enlarged links and buttons as it makes it more clickable. Some websites see a lot of bounce rate because they had small click-on.
Fixed menus on the bottom screen help– If you want your users to feel easy about using your website or app, simply place a menu on the bottom of the screen. This will help them navigate easily and jump pages without moving much.
Ditch the excessive links– Links are absolutely necessary. But think of it this way. If you were using some app or website on your phone, filling out delivery details and accidentally touched a free-floating link that directed you to a completely different page. When you resume, you see you have to fill the details again. What will you do now? Would you go ahead and buy the product or you simply log-out and find something better to do with life.