Screened out

Yet another reason for diversity in tech: there would be no lack of small phones if 50% of phone designers and engineers were women.

But in bounding after large screens, phone makers seemed to ignore the usability issues that accompany them. Small studies have shown before that 4.3 inches is about as big as a phone can get before people start struggling to use it. The time to operate the phone slows down significantly because one-hand use is awkward—and that’s for average men’s hands. Assuming a normal distribution, for half of men and most women, a phone bigger than 4.3 inches—like the current smallest iPhone—is too big.

I have pretty large hands, and even with that being true anything beyond 4 inches I find unusable. A phone with a 3.7 inch screen would be perfect for me.

I know, some women choose large phones on purpose. A few times in public I’ve seen a woman with a 6+ inch phone hold it up to her face and it’s so large that it nearly covers her whole head. This is kind of funny because it looks like some Alice in Wonderland tableau.

But most women — like my partner — would choose smaller phones if any were for sale.

As would I. So in other words phone makers are not just ignoring half the market — they are probably ignoring 60% or more of the market.

What’s that about the omniscalar efficiency of capitalism again?