Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Handedness
About of 15 percent of the population worldwide are left-handed. That is a huge num-
ber of people and potential customers, but their needs sometimes are not taken in-
to consideration. Some interfaces and control elements are created mostly for right-
handed persons (control elements are aligned to the right-hand side of the screen,
which is especially evident when a device is in a landscape mode), and that is wrong.
Especially when UIs are created for mobile devices with a very flexible layout system.
To prepare a game which is handedness friendly, you only need to prepare two lay-
outs of the buttons with their positions mirrored. By default, the layout for right-handed
players should be used, but in the
Options
menu there must be a button to switch
it to the left-handed setup. In most cases, such an approach can be developed very
simply, because there is no need to redraw control elements and so on, only their co-
ordinates need to be changed on the screen. Another approach is to try to develop
a center-based UI or control system without an exact screen position (the application
only needs to get a tap or gestures, but the exact coordinates are irrelevant), so it can
be handedness independent, but that is not always possible.
If a game uses some specific gestures such as swipes, they should be comfortable
for both types of handedness. An optimal solution is a vertical direction of such ges-
tures, which is pretty comfortable for both hands; in case they are horizontal, it is good
to keep in mind that a direction towards the dominating hand is more comfortable for
people.
And as always, it's very important to have a real left-handed person, who can share
his thoughts about the UI adaptations for his needs.
