The Case of Two Numpads – A Design Detective Story | Taiste by Antti Mäki
A great design story about the history of numpad designs and how context drives the design.
It was never about CONVENTION, but rather the CONTEXT.
I quickly flip through my notes. It is all too clear now. The context of use should lead my design. The 1-2-3 layout is commonly used for inputting phone numbers, PIN-codes and other identifying series of numbers.These numbers are abstract. They have no MEANING. For PIN-codes or phone numbers we could also use letters or even emojis, but numbers are there for easier memorisation.
Understanding this difference in the use context, there are many ways to design a usable layout for a number input in your software. Using multiple layouts might very well make sense, as the numbers we input have different meaning in different contexts.