Slashdot Mirror
Confessions of a Left-Handed Technology User
harrymcc writes "Over at TIME.com, I wrote about my trials and tribulations as a left-handed person who uses technology products. An awful lot of them have clearly been designed with the right-handed majority in mind, even when they claimed they weren't. But the good news is that modern smartphones and tablets are very lefty-friendly compared to the devices that preceded them."
where is the stuff that matters here?
I'm no longer ashamed to state that I am a Mac user. I know that bigots will view me differenty now that I've come out of the closet. I may lose my girlfriend and my family may disown me, but I will no longer deny my identity.
I AM A MAC!
It's okay, left handed people don't have souls. Just like gingers.
Also you're complaining about chirality in technology? Really? How is this news for nerds? This place has become an even bigger gay gang bang since Taco picked up his toys and went home. OMG Ponies had more gravitas than the shit posted on Slashdot of late.
The Microsoft logo used for this story is outdated.
Yes, but the more important question is whether the article writer is related to Phil McCracken.
won't be standiNg live and a job to your own beer over to yet another
As a life long lefty, I can honestly say I've never felt the need to complain because a piece of technology isn't designed for me. I don't find any technology gadget I own to be designed in such a way so as to impede my usage of it.
I do know lefties who complain constantly about the injustice afforded them, but to be honest I've never been able to empathize with them.
I feel that this is an insightful and relevant comment to the story.
I've seen some crap stories on Slashdot, but this one is the crappiest of all time.
I'm left-handed and I seriously don't see all of the life-challenges that are moaned about in this article and others, whether they concern technology or not. I'm pretty convinced that life as a left-hander is no harder than it would be if I were right-handed.
Maybe I'm just so used to right handed mice. I have always had the same issue with left handed scissors as well. :-/
I'm a lefty and adapt to tech like I adapt to everything else. Mouse is used on the right hand. I did develop one of my apps to have a "Left Handed Mode" called Poggler.
My dad who was also a lefty used the mouse with his left hand.
Other than smudging the ink from those awful erasable pens, I never payed much attention to products working or not working for us lefties, until CD's came along. Actually, it wasn't until I watched my right handed friend struggle to open a CD case. Somehow he was awkwardly trying to pry the front open with his right hand, which between the case swinging open against the natural movement of the right arm, and somehow gripping the edges of the lid with his left hand as he held the back, was quite entertaining.
For me it was natural to hold the back with my right hand (hinge side on my middle fingers, other side on my thumb) and then grab the front with my left hand (fingers/thumb along top and bottom). The case just opened beautifully.
It is the only tech device I can think of that worked better for us lefties from day one.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
I prefer ambidextrous mice. It probably has something to do with my mouse style--an extreme version of the fingertip grip--and I find that *-handed mice tend to want to rotate while I'm using them. I think that *-handed mice are really only good for people with the palm-grip style.
Take the gamepad, for instance. You do all the movement control that requires dexterity with your left hand, and use the right to simply bash buttons. For a couple of the very-hard fighting game maneuvers, I find myself crossing my right hand over.
Sendou Wave Kick!!
It's not that difficult to switch hands, infact it may be better for you in the long run. Many of the users where I work have switch the mouse from right to left because it's more ergonomic.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
... to stop my pesky colleagues from using my computer. Worked surprisingly very well.
The author write about things that aren't even an inconvenience as being too right hand centric such as the control panel on copiers being to the right side of their paper trays. [I'm not familiar with that style as ours here and every one I have happened to use has the control panel on the left side or centered.]
Another set of examples involves the port and button layout on the sides of laptops.
Either you're going to do it by feel which is not a fine precision action or you're going to look at the laptop (possibly rotating it) so this isn't a right or left hand friendly thing but more about how natural it feels by repetition.
The authors valid concerns are keyboards and mice.
Keyboards are mostly right hand centric when it comes to the keypad.
Most keyboards with extra buttons are across the top and not very friendly to begin with.
Some keyboards have buttons to the left for additional features. This isn't even an attempt to be right or left hand centric but friendly for travel distance of your hand as your hand is positioned to the left side of the keyboard to type.
The mouse is still extremely unfriendly as they are designed largely for right handed people and try to give them a more natural feel.
This has changed only very slowly and is actually kind of appalling.
"Over at TIME.com, I wrote ..." I stopped reading at that point.
Even though I am right-handed, I mouse with my left.
(Makes me more productive)...
I find myself agreeing with the author, because I search in vain for a proper left-mouse.
Boo Logiech!!
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
Why the heck do people use their good hand on the mouse? I use my left hand on the mouse and use my good hand to operate the much more complex keyboard.
I'm mainly lefty, but mixed dominance is how it plays out. I switch mouse hands about every 6 months to even up the wear on my joints and tendons. Sometimes I switch the buttons around, sometimes I don't; I reckon that helps contribute to mental flexibility.
One of the photo captions: "Steve Jobs claimed to be ambidextrous, but as this 1981 photo shows, he wore his watch on his left hand -- a tattletale sign of right-handedness"
Really?! On which hand is an ambidextrous person supposed to wear a watch?
I only have problems with two products I own:
1. Samsung Galaxy S3. The screen is so big that it is wider than my thumb. That means that I've some difficulties using the back button. Since that is the button I use more, its uncomfortable. Right handed people with small hands would have the same problem with the "menu" button. Also, lot of program with scroll bars are on the left side. Very few offer an option to change the size of the scrollbar; the buttons can usually be reprogrammed after rooting (I still have to look how to do it on the S3.)
2. My Sony Vaio laptop. I use right-handed buttons on the mouse but with the left hand (left side). My Vaio has the fan air exit on the left side, so if I'm using an external mouse my hand is constantly receiving a not so nice (specially in summer) how air stream.
Other than that, I've never feel "impeded" by technology.
So, will lefties demand to drive british cars in the USA? Right now they are forced to operate the gear lever with their non-dominant right hand.
This is exactly how I am explaining to everyone what the 'ideal' (so it won't be confusing) side of the road is to drive on:
Assumptions:
1. There are two side-by-side seats in front, with a center console for instrumentation.
2. One sits on the opposite side of the side of the road one drives on (e.g. drive on the right, sit on the left).
3. Drivers prefer to use their dominant hand for tasks that require the most precise motor control.
Argument:
Since the console, which holds the gear shift, climate control, GPS, stereo, etc. is in the centre, it depends on what the dominant hand is for the majority of the population. If that happens to be the right hand, the console should be to the right of the driver, hence the driver is sitting in the left seat. With assumption 2 that follows the car should drive on the right-hand side of the road.
Lefties can rejoyce themselves in thinking what it would be like for a right-handed person to learn to drive with a standard stick-shift over in the UK.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
It's quite a joy having to remap every key for pretty much every video game ever. Of course there are some laughs here and there, for example when righties whine about poor control schemes...
In the end I find it makes me better than the average player as I adapt, and can adapt quicker than the average person, but it also raises the bar for what I will put up with.
The worst part is mouse and keyboards though. There are no good lefty mice, so it's ambi or go home. Keyboards are also very touchy. Home keys for movement being pl'; those keys need to work and not have ghosting issues and key layout comes into play also.
Frakking clawgrippers, make it impossible to find a proper non-wireless palm-grip mouse these days.
If you want something to complain about you'll find it. Maybe it's not the left-handed thing getting in the way, but rather your assumption that the world is out to get you for it. Buttons are generally on both sides of devices or centred which makes them equally easy or difficult for left/right handed people. As for marker smudges, you can't blame technology for that one, that's the fault of writing in a left-to-right language. Top to bottom and right to left languages would not cause any issue for lefties.
Most recent example of a hand bias that hit major headlines. While I doubt Apple made this mistake by using only right-handed testers and it likely had more to do with minimal testing in poor signal areas, this problem manifested more frequently with the way a lefty held their phone.
Back in the days when it was normal to have only 1 family computer, I forced my left handed mother and sister to use the mouse on the right side. Both still do to this day and thank me for it. Some times you just need to adapt to the world around you.
I think the worst thing about it is buying sport equipment. All three of us brothers are lefties, and growing up, we played a lot of sports. A nice set of left handed golf clubs, for example, are almost twice as much for the right handed version if they are even available.
On an unrelated note, in my first engineering course in college my professor said for all the left-handed people to raise their hands, which ended up being more than 50% of the class. Aside from my own home, that's the only time I've ever been in the majority with my dominant hand.
For me, the ability to play FPSes using the arrow keys dwarves all other inconveniences.
I'm ambidextrous. I can screw things up equally with both hands.
Actually, I'm left handed, but I've never had any issue with right-handed devices.. scissors work just fine for me, etc.
...I'm ashamed to be associated with this article/author in any way. I've been a lefty since day one per my parents - there was never any doubt. Was it easy growing up learning to write, use tech, etc.? Yeah, actually, it was. A child's brain is highly plastic. Additionally, my kindegarten and first grade teacher (same woman) was lefthanded so I had that advantage as compared to all the other unfortunates in my class hehe. And now that I'm an adult I do just fine. Yeah, I mouse with my right. And by some miracle I can actually use standard scissors - the horror! I don't think I've ever known anyone who couldn't. I do have a dexterity advantage in operating a motorcycle though as the transmission controls are fully on the left side. :D
What about us poor folks who can't make up their minds? I write, bowl, golf and eat right handed. I throw a baseball, football, darts, shoot baskets with my left. I wish the numeric keypad was on the other side of the keyboard. And it really is time to switch the (numeric)keys to match those on a phone.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
As a leftie, I absolutely disagree with the author's reasoning. I think that most computers favor lefties, for one simple reason. In most standard computer configurations, you use peripheral devices with your right hand, leaving your left hand for the interface that requires the most dexterity. I'm talking specifically about the keyboard.
I mouse right-handed. I used to mouse left-handed until I got tired of having to move my left hand from the keyboard to the mouse all the time. The switch took me about a week to get used to.
Sure, when I'm typing, I use both hands. But when I'm doing repetitive tasks that involve both keyboard and mouse (e.g. hit this button, type some text, hit this button again, type some more text...) I just keep my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand on the mouse. As mentioned in the article, the QWERTY layout favors lefties anyway. A leftie typing with just his left hand is in general going to be faster than a rightie typing with just his right.
Numeric keypads? Same thing. I learned to use the keypad with my right hand, and it's never been a problem. That still leaves my left hand on the keyboard for switching back and forth between typing numbers and text.
As for power buttons and disc-eject buttons, this is leftie-centric for a different reason. If you position your computer tower to your right so that you can reach it more easily with your right hand, you have to reach across the tower to hit a button on the other side. But if your computer tower is on your left so that you can reach it more easily with your left hand, you reach for the near side of the tower. You don't have to reach as far.
I agree with his complaint about laptop optical drives being on the right hand side, but it has nothing to do with handedness. I just think the drives should be on the opposite site as the mouse so that the mouse doesn't get in the way. Since he mouses left-handed, this probably never occurred to him because he's never had the disc tray hit the mouse when ejecting. Putting a disc in the drive is a two-handed job on the laptop anyway. One hand to pull out the tray and one to insert the disc. (I know, you can do it one-handed, but you can do it two-handed more quickly)
About his only legitimate complaint is the position of control panels on printers. But I use them so seldom that I'm fine with just standing a step to the right. Besides, how often do you need to access the paper trays at the same time as using the control panel anyway?
Learn to be ambidextrous. It will serve you well no matter which is your dominant hand and it is helpful protection against strokes and such.
I have had various bits of lefty technologies bought me over the years, and probably half of them surprised people in existing at all. These include - the left-handed bread knife (blade serrations on only one side, tends to result in righthanders cutting wedges); the left-handed saucepan (with a lip on one side of the rim only, dribbles for righthanders); lefthanded scissors (right handers can't see the cutting line without moving their neck to position the head to look at the back of the cutting hand); lefthanded mugs (logo/design facing the wrong way); lefthanded fountain pen (doesn't stick its nib into the paper); lefthanded guitar (strings round the other way, bridge cut to accommodate the wider strings, fingerboard on the other way, leads trailing away); the lefthanded corkscrew (turns the other way); the lefthanded can opener (ditto). Most of these are easy to adapt to with just a little practice, and the situation is definitely getting better (iPhone 4 excepted). However, I have barely had any handedness issues with digital technologies compared with these old-world examples. Just imagine what being the only lefthander in a line of people scything a field of corn would have been like - the answer, presumably, is either very dangerous or . . . a bit like a righthander. So, yes, it can be a bit of a nuisance sometimes, but there are so many other prejudices worth getting worked up about that I don't let the cruel oppression of the dextrous get to me.
I'm left-handed and of course have always bought ambidextrous / neutral mice. What puzzles me is why anyone would *want* to use a mouse that was permanently shaped for one hand. I mean, I switch off my mouse hand sometimes when I start to feel tendinitis (such as after a marathon gaming session on the weekend). I can't imagine using the same mouse hand *always*.
I'm left-handed and if I want to quickly skim through some magazine or book, I tend to start from the back cover.
As a kid, I was given a pair of left-handed scissors. They were horrible. I hated them. I learned to use right-handed scissors instead, assuming I wasn't as left-handed as I thought.
Later in life, I happened upon a pair of good-quality left-handed scissors. To my amazement, I could use them just fine! The scissors I'd tried to use as a kid clearly couldn't cut through butter.
Being left-handed, I've generally found that I have to decide for myself how a thing should be used. I might not use it in the same way as a right-handed person, but I'd usually find a way that makes sense. It's silly when manufacturers go out of their way to make a thing right-handed that could just as easily have been ambidextrous, but still not a huge deal.
One useful example. I'm American. My family attempted to teach me to hold a knife and fork like a right-handed American. (Hold the fork in your right hand... unless you want to cut something - then you switch the fork to your left hand, and hold the knife in the right.) I thought that was silly, and figured I should just take the silverware from where it was on the table. I hold the fork in my left, and the knife in my right. (It turns out I inadvertently learned to eat like a European)
So you think it is acceptable to have to force your hand into a claw shape and wrench on some scissors to make them work? You know what is better for a lefty than good scissors? Good scissors for a lefty.
Paring knives work noticeably better if you get a left handed one at well. They don't slip or cut too deep when you use one with the edge on the proper side.
I find that even doors are frustrating and open the wrong way. I have to either remember to pull a door with my right hand, or do a little dance where I have to step sideways through a door.
So often I find touch UIs are difficult to see when I use my left hand to tap. And even on my Palm Pilot, there were several applications that I just had to use right handed to be able to use them. Being able to see what you are tapping is pretty important.
I had some left handed coffee mugs made, with the logos on the other side.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
As far as I'm concerned the normal guitar is already a left handed instrument. And righties are at a huge disadvantage. On a standard guitar, where you are picking with your right and fretting with your left, you need more strength in your left hand and the ability to know where your hand is without looking too much.
I love my left scissors. I didn't know they made a proper corkscrew, so I bought a high tech one that you just squeeze with either (or both) hands.
Power switch on most tablets and cell phones means I have to flip the device around in my hand to turn it off one handed, or attempt it with my right. And sometimes touch kiosks are a bit tricky because I can't see the status of what I'm touching and have to listen instead of look. (like when getting movie tickets)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Most left handed people (such as myself) learn to handle tools and gadgets right handed. It is a right handed world. In a way this is an advantage, as we southpaws do more and therefore tend to have more dexterity using the "wrong hand" than most righties. This tends to make southpaws somewhat ambidextrous. Watch someone doing a repetitious task -- if they're naturally a leftie, chances are they're using both hands. If they're naturally a rightie, often their left arm just hangs there like a piece of meat.
Back in the days of mechanical cash registers, me and the only other leftie checker were the fastest bar none.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
In second grade, my teachers tried to force me to be right handed. (For which I would like to give a personal "thank you". Oh, and "may you burn in hell".) I got terrible headaches and a bad stutter. (I know handedness as a cause of stuttering is now considered controversial. I can only tell you what I experienced.) In fifth grade I switched myself back. My symptoms gradually disappeared. As a result, I never learned to write cursive with my dominant hand, as those years were spent training a hand that doesn't write anymore.
However, being the only southpaw in a large extended family, I was introduced to the perils of a right-hand-only world at an early age. Even though I now own left handed scissors, I still tend to use them right handed out of habit.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
A few years ago I started setting my desk up lefty: keyboard on the right, mouse on the left. This means that the QWERTY section is dead center and that reaching over to the mouse is a much shorter distance. My typing speed is up considerably and my right wrist no longer bends at a weird angle.
Retraining to mouse left-handed was easy. It took a few days of being a fumbling klutz but now it's completely natural. Having to buy ambidextrous mice really limits your options though.
You lefties DO NOT want a lefty keyboard. That just gets you back to the same dysfunction that I had to escape. I want a lefty keyboard. Does anyone know of a lefty keyboard with light clicky keyswitches (Cherry MX Blues are perfect)?
I consider myself to be very left-hand oriented. I write, use my mouse/trackpad/trackball in my left, play a left-handed guitar, and golf lefty. I'm a switch-hitter in baseball, but prefer my left, and throw lefty. My shotgun is bottom-eject, because I shoot lefty, too.
Right-handed tools are the bane of my existence. I hire contractors to do all my home repairs/upgrades that involves power tools. I won't risk it. As a computer-oriented professional, my hands are too important to lose them, or any of my fingers, in an accident.
The problem with mice isn't that left-handed mice aren't available, it is that schools and businesses will blindly purchase right-handed mice. Even worse, none of the operating systems make it quick and easy to change the mousing preferences. This should be a clear and visible option on the login screen, but it isn't. In all Linux distributions, in MacOS, and Windows (through to at least 7), you can't switch your mouse binding without digging into relatively obscure options, that can only be accessed through use of the right-handed mouse, or relatively arcane keyboard-oriented knowledge. That is assuming the school/business hasn't wired the mouse in a way where it is difficult or impossible to use it on the other side of the keyboard. The average user will default to learning how to use the mouse right-handed before they figure out the mouse can be used left-handed, or spend the time to configure every public access-terminal.
The anarchist in me has left public computers configured for left-handed use after using it, for the sake of the next left-handed person, and for the education of the right-handers. If they can discriminate...
In the USA, businesses and schools are not required to provide left-handed computing facilities or otherwise assist left-handed employees, contractors, or students. The ADA does not protect left-handedness as it is a physical characteristic, and not an impairment. However, culturally, left-handed people ARE impaired and would benefit from government mandated accessibility in schools and businesses.
I've found that Swype is a notable exception to the original article's statement that mobile is better for lefties. What makes Qwerty so good for lefties on a keyboard is what makes it so terrible for Swype.
First, the most common keys in Qwerty are on the left, which benefits from the angle at which a right-handed swype-motion attacks. Secondly, when using the right-hand, the keyboard is not as frequently obscured. The thumb always covers the least-used keys, exposing the more frequently used keys (those on the left) for navigation and selection. Still, with Swype, the right-thumb will eventually obscure keys for the right-handed user, but it is never as bad as it is for the lefty.
Lefties using Swype will most frequently cover the most frequently used keys, leaving the right-hand-side of the keyboard exposed, where the least-frequently-used keys reside. Also, the attack angle of the left-thumb is more likely to trigger false selections, both because of the nature of the angle itself, and (I presume) a bias in the software toward a right-thumbed attack angle.
These problems aren't so bad with two-thumb qwerty software keyboards, since they're intended to be used with both hands. In that case, it really don't matter, no more than with a standard keyboard. In fact, like with standard qwerty, the lefty might be at an advantage. Still, as a lefty, I haven't had much success with on-screen keyboards, so I do wonder if all those righties that have no problem have some hidden advantage that I haven't quite figured out yet.
The A500 was my first computer with a mouse, and I'm almost positive I moused with my left hand, which the author says isn't possible due to the short cord on the mouse. I eventually evolved into a right handed mouser, but I'm almost positive I used the Amiga's in my left.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I had pain in my right hand from using the mouse for too long, so I started using my left hand. After a few weeks I can use my left hand with the mouse absolutely fine.
Why don't left handed people just learn how to use their right hands? I just don't understand, it's not as if it's impossible. If most of the population were left handed, I would train my left hand even more, so that I could use left handed scissors, etc.
Why do left handers act as if 'they were born that way', when clearly they weren't? i.e. since you can train your other hand, and it feels exactly the same as it felt when you were a baby/child and first trained your current hand, why don't they just fix it at the source - themselves?
I was originally left-handed but over the past 3 years have integrated right-hand mouse for games and computer tasks. I definitely think differently and focus on different tasks in slightly different ways when using l/r-hands. They are after all, controlled by different hemispheres of the brain.
As a lefty, I don't know how I would tug one out if I hadn't grown up using a mouse with my right hand.
How do you righties manage it?
has there every been a poll?
I'd be interested in finding out if there are significantly more lefties among slashdot readers.
At work I have my workstation set up with a mouse on each side of the keyboard. I'm not aware of any way to swap the buttons on just one mouse through software, but I have never been completely satisfied with the software approach. Instead, I hardwire the buttons to be swapped.
Now I don't even know which mouse I use most often. I catch myself using either. I think I prefer the one on the left because I don't have to move over the numeric keypad to get to it, but more often it has to do with whichever way I am leaning in my chair.
The big advantage is when someone else needs to sit down at my workstation to do something, there is a normal right-handed mouse for them on the right. The only downside is that I always get that question about why I have two mice.
I've often wondered why a bias even exists. It'll be a positive feedback of some sort as per all dominant traits.
Is it just due to our preference for learning by copying each other, or maybe it's something like survival from combat because of where more of the vital organs are located?
Why handed at all? This is possibly a separate question, as in it's faster learning combinations one way than both. Which kind of leads back to the learning by copying thing ...
On my desktop, I put the mouse on the left side of the keyboard and I move the mouse with my left hand
And I don't know why 99.9% of the time I see others put their mice on the right side of their keyboard
I find it cumbersome to have to juggle my right hand from keyboard to mouse and then back again, while the left hand remains idle 75% of the time
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Try getting a set-up if you are ambidextrous and mouse with left and/or right hand. I am yet to find a way to have the index pointer to work properly with both mouses working correctly. Using the mouse set-up with exclusive handedness causes fatigue.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
How to tell if someone is right or left handed. Watch them clap. Righties clap with their right hand into their left, lefties with their left hand into their right.
Aside from the Simpsons to "Flander's Leftorium" reference, there was a lefty store in NYC decades ago. The door knob was a manikin left hand, so a righty had a problem getting inside. What I have found is strong "left-to-right, top to bottom" flows in maps, circuit diagrams and layouts, solutions involving array processing, etc. I did an article decdes ago about knowing the language groups of my students by looking at their code, not their names.