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Ask HN: Do you prefer to hold your tablet landscape or portrait?

6 points by coryl ↗ HN
I'm new to iPad development, so design issues like this have just been brought to my attention. I'm learning a lot about little subtleties. For example, my kids entertainment app (landscape fixed) features a menu with images of animals that you can drag onto a main canvas. I initially designed this menu on the left, but after a bit of testing, I didn't like the way your arm covered up most of the screen as you were reaching over to touch the menu. This made me realize most people are right handed, and would probably feel the same way. After moving the menu to the right, it also made me realize that a pulling drag is different from a pushing drag, something I might want to take into account for the future.

I've been wondering if people prefer a certain way of holding and using their iPad or tablets. Personally I prefer landscape mode for browsing and reading, as the portrait mode renders more page than necessary and makes the text tiny. Overall I prefer holding it in landscape mode, I'm not sure why but it feels more solid in my hands. Portrait has a weird weight distribution, or maybe it has to do with reaching more because of the bigger north/south distance.

Any thoughts on design/UX appreciated. Thanks

8 comments

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twelvechairs
Landscape in 'general' but not for overly vertical content, pages where there are huge horizontal banners (bad!), or for typing (the keys on an ipad in landscape form are ridiculously oversized)
tstegart
I too like landscape. But we designed our app in portrait mode because it was easier, both technologically and because it fits with people's general perceptions of magazines. We're hoping to make it both in the future, but it's a lot harder than it looks.
glimcat
Portrait, but switching to landscape as needed (videos, page's CSS isn't portrait friendly, Angry Birds).

Also probably worth noting that I have a book-aspect tablet, I might have a different preference if it was less tall.

swiecki
Portrait! Something about landscape makes it way too difficult to hold with one hand.
jefflinwood
Landscape! But that said, I've just spent a lot of time designing an iPad app I'm working on so it works in both - it really takes a lot more time than you initially think!

I ended up using a combination of autoresizing masks and resizing some UIView containers in code when it rotates.

I released a landscape-only app for the HP Touchpad (same form factor as an iPad), and a few of the user comments were that they wanted a portrait version, so people do notice these things if they like the app.

malyk
Portrait for all reading based activities...web browsing, twitter, Facebook, books, etc.

Landscape only for games.

I don't understand why you would use landscape for any text based viewing.

rdl
(iPad user, although I also tried out a Kindle Fire). I use portrait for everything except watching video. I haven't really found any iPad games which held my interest long enough to care.
allenbrunson
Tangentially related: Apple's general theme seems to be that's it okay for iPhone apps to be portrait-only or landscape-only, but iPad apps had better support all four possible orientations (portrait, portrait upside down, landscape left, landscape right) unless you have a really good reason not to. It is not uncommon for Apple to reject an iPad app from the store for not supporting all orientations.