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Content is not restricted to portrait orientation

The content on the screen should rotate from portrait to landscape orientation.

Impact​

  • This is important for users who have their screen mounted horizontally on a wheelchair and cannot rotate it.
  • 1 in 3 people use an enlarged font. Landscape orientation makes text easier to read with a (very) large font.

Description​

All the content on the screen should rotate when the device is switched from portrait to landscape orientation. More words fit on the screen in landscape mode, which is useful for users who increase font sizes for better readability.

Exceptions​

All cases where locking to portrait orientation is essential.

  • A scanning app locks to portrait mode when capturing documents for optical character recognition (OCR).
  • A heart rate monitoring app locks to portrait mode for better sensor alignment when holding the phone or wearing it in a specific way.

Examples​

A news app rotates to landscape mode when the user rotates the screen.

Failures​

  • A banking app does not rotate to landscape mode, preventing users with horizontally mounted screens from using it properly.
  • A video player stays in portrait mode, even when the user rotates the device.

Testing​

Procedure​

  1. Disable screen orientation lock in the device settings.
  2. Navigate to the screen in the app.
  3. Rotate the phone from portrait to landscape mode.
  4. Check whether all content rotates with the screen orientation.

Expected result​

  • If all content rotates with the screen orientation from portrait to landscape, the screen passes.
  • If content remains locked in portrait orientation, the screen fails.

Solutions​

Resources​