Poly Rove 20

Team Composition:

1 Design Engineer Researcher
1 Surface Enginner

Role:

Lead HF

Problem

Optimizing Button Space in a Smaller Phone Design
The challenge was to optimize the button layout for a smaller phone design without sacrificing usability. The primary concerns included:

Decreasing Button Size: Reducing the size of the buttons to accommodate a more compact design, while still ensuring they are large enough for comfortable, accurate pressing.
Maintaining Button Spacing: Ensuring sufficient spacing between buttons to prevent accidental presses, while keeping the layout compact and user-friendly for all hand sizes.

Solution

To address the challenge of optimizing button space in the smaller phone design, the following design solutions were implemented:

Pill-Shaped Buttons: The buttons were re-designed into a pill shape, which increased finger space and made pressing the buttons more comfortable, especially for users with larger fingers.
Flushed Call Buttons: The call buttons were flushed with the device’s surface, with the outer parts of the buttons becoming actionable. This design choice ensured the buttons remained functional while offering a more seamless, ergonomic experience.
Raised D-pad: The D-pad was positioned higher than the surrounding buttons, creating more clearance and improving usability by making it easier to differentiate the D-pad from other buttons, reducing accidental presses.

Usability Test

Using a low-fidelity prototype, I conducted a series of usability tests where users interacted with and pressed all the buttons on the device. The focus was on analyzing the following factors:

Finger Actuation: Observing how users interacted with the buttons, especially in terms of ease of pressing and accuracy.
Button Travel Force: Measuring the required force to press the buttons and ensuring the right balance for comfort and responsiveness.
Spacing: Assessing the spacing between buttons to minimize accidental presses and ensure ease of use.

Given the limited space for button placement and the design constraints, it was essential to create a solution that allowed users to press all buttons accurately without compromising functionality.

For more details on this project, please contact me.

lopezg7575@gmail.com

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