Note: While I think I am justifiably irked, I am also fully aware that I have a lot of privilege causing the irk. New gadgets not catering to my specific morphology is a Well-Off White World Problem, if I've ever seen it.
Online shopping is great, isn’t it? For a lot of purchases it’s ideal. Except for anything to do with touch-screen tech for me, because I’m left-handed.
Being left-handed is a weird liminal space. You’re not discriminated against as a minority (anymore), but you’re not, y’know, considered a lot. And you’re not disabled in any way, but you’re also not completely able to do everything meant for righties, either.1 When you’re a tech nerd, it can cause you to pull your hair out…with both hands.
Where Is the Left-handed Tech?
See, I’m shopping for an ePaper notepad/tablet (for medical reasons, I’ll get into it some time). Of course, because they’re new technology made by innovative companies they’re all sold online, not through the tech shops.
But I’m constantly annoyed by the devices I already have because the UI gets in the way of my left-handed needs. (And I know everything I need is possible, because most of my devices have at least one nod to my existence, just not everything I want in one machine.) In other words, I’ve been burned a lot through online shopping. So I check all my FAQs.
The Inclusive Promise
Imagine how happy I was to read in the FAQs for the heavily advertised reMarkable 2 that they have a left-handed mode. They don’t explain or show how it works, but they promise it has one because they employ left-handed people. Except, maybe not in the physical design team because they built it specifically for right-handed use: it’s not symmetrical. Instead, it has a spine on the left side like a regular notepad and a thicker bezel on the bottom than the top.
Then there’s the Supernote, another highly recommended epaper tablet. It has built in gesture swipe bars on the bezel. The smaller, current model available even has one on both sides (still waiting on the release of the full notepad sized model). Sounds promising! What’s more, the website talks about handedness on the front page FAQ and promises to adapt to your dominant hand by flipping (if that’s achieved in settings or by physically rotating isn’t clear).
The Inaccessible Problem
But lefties write differently. We don’t mirror right-handed writing, and we don’t just flip how right-handed people write. Do you know what lefties do when we write? Rest our hands on the left edge of the page and then push the pen across the paper.
When I use a regular notepad I start at the back page so the spine is on the right, but I can’t write on the back of a tablet to avoid the unnecessary spine. The other option is to rotate it 180°. Will the reMarkable 2 flip with me and let me keep the left-handed mode? I don’t know. But I do know from experience that if I rotate the reMarkable 2 like that, the wide bottom bezel that stops you from accidentally touching the screen and interfering with functionality will be at the top, and my palms will constantly touch the actual screen now at the bottom, interfering with functionality.
As for those “convenient” slider toolbars on the Supernote? Well, the gesture to open slider toolbars is to swipe from the bezel inwards. In other words, the opposite of a righty’s movement as they write so that they don’t accidentally use gesture commands. But it’s the exact same motion as a lefty’s writing movement. What’s the UI fix so that lefty hand placement doesn’t unintentionally command the tablet when we rest our hand to write? Disable the gesture functions. The Supernote’s lefty version of convenience features programmed for righties is to just turn off the convenience features. Very convenient.
I know it's a small thing. I know I can adapt to whatever I end up with because I've always had to and always managed to make gadgets almost work for me. It's just that I wish tech products at this cost/level would arrange trial stations at tech gadget stores (or some other sales trick) so we can try them out. Because right now...I'm feeling left in the lurch.
- Flatt AE. Is being left-handed a handicap? The short and useless answer is “yes and no.”. Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2008 Jul;21(3):304-7. doi: 10.1080/08998280.2008.11928414. PMID: 18628930; PMCID: PMC2446422. ↩︎