Keypads

JulesP

JulesP

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Julian
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Why do phone keypads always start with 1 at top left but calculators have button 1 at bottom left?
Has bugged me for ages.
 
There's a surprisingly straightforward reason for it.

Phones are designed to emulate the old style rotary dial phones where 1,2,3 are at the top. Plus usability research shows that top-to-bottom is more intuitive for most people. Phones are mass-market devices so these are important considerations.

However calculators are designed with Benford's Law in mind. Real world datasets - such as accounting which would have been the driving force behind the development of calculator keypads - exhibit a strange phenomenon whereby low digits are more common than high digits. So calculators make it easier to enter low digits by putting 1,2,3 at the bottom where they're easier to reach.

Both were being developed in the 1950s so neither was available to act as a precedent for the other.

OK now?
 
StewartR said:
There's a surprisingly straightforward reason for it.

Phones are designed to emulate the old style rotary dial phones where 1,2,3 are at the top. Plus usability research shows that top-to-bottom is more intuitive for most people. Phones are mass-market devices so these are important considerations.

However calculators are designed with Benford's Law in mind. Real world datasets - such as accounting which would have been the driving force behind the development of calculator keypads - exhibit a strange phenomenon whereby low digits are more common than high digits. So calculators make it easier to enter low digits by putting 1,2,3 at the bottom where they're easier to reach.

Both were being developed in the 1950s so neither was available to act as a precedent for the other.

OK now?
Click to expand...
Makes sense - thanks.
Bit like VHS and Betamax but neither won (there's a whole new conversation).
 
Wasn't Betamax pioneered by Sony? Seems none of their stuff is industry standard but generally good quality.
 
Well, Sony championed CDs and also persuaded Philips to open up the cassette patents. They were also instrumental in getting DVD and BluRay adopted as "standard" formats.
 
Don't forget the minidisc - that was another Sony idea.
I think Bluray won over HD-DVD because it sounded cooler:)
 
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