Hmmm. You must be younger than I thought.
(switching to grumpy old man voice) Back in my day, ALL scissors were non-handed.
(back to normal voice) When the handed designs came out, we bought two pair: right-handed for Dad and left-handed for Mom, because the molded plastic simply didn’t let you fit your left hand into the right-handed scissors (or vice-versa) comfortably. They pinched when used with the wrong hand.
All scissors have an inherent handedness to the blades. Back in the 1970s-ish they started making scissors with obviously handed grips as you say.
But even scissors with completely symmetrical grips, such as fingernail scissors, very definitely have handed blades. Used in one hand, the natural leverage of thumb versus fingers forces the blades together, while used in the the other hand the same natural leverage forces the blades apart. If the scissors’ pivot bolt is tight enough and the material being cut is thick and soft enough the difference may be unnoticeable at first glance.
But it is 100% real.
You’re focusing on the handles and not the blades. No matter the shape of the handles, the blades have an inherent handedness. Take a look at the linked picture.
The right-handed scissors always has the right-to-left blade over the other blade. Even if you flip them over.
(Partially ninjaed.)
Symmetrical scissors like this one seem not to have handedness, since they can be flipped for use by the other hand.
No, they can’t. They may be designed to be usable in either hand, but there is still an inherent handedness to the blades that can’t be changed by flipping them.
Flip the scissors in your picture over, keeping the point to the left, and the nearest blade will still be the one swinging up from the bottom.
Continuing from @Dr.Strangelove …
Yes, using the example of @Pleonast’s picture, either set of handles will fit equally well in either hand. But that’s not the point. It’s the blades that matter. And they are not symmetrical at all.
We’re using “handedness” in the physics / geometry sense, not in the “can it fit either human hand” sense. See also “right hand rule” if this distinction is lost on you.
The scissor blades do not simply rotate about the axis of the bolt in one plane of motion. They also tilt slightly while being moved by your thumb & hand. Which affects how the cutting edges come together. There’s a reason quality scissors have two very different edges ground into the two blades. The blades are not the same. Held at the correct designed angle to one another they cut well. Held at different angles they cut less well and perhaps terribly depending on the material.
And most importantly the blades also butterfly just a bit. With a right-handed scissors held in the right hand, as you close your hand and the scissors blades move, the base of your thumb is pushing the upper handle to the left and meanwhile your fingers are pulling the lower handle to the right.
Which means your thumb is forcing the blade end of the thumb half (the lower blade) towards the right while your hand is forcing the blade end of the finger half (the upper blade) towards the left. Which squeezes the two cutting edges tightly together. At least if you’re using right-handed scissors they do.
Conversely, if you pick up the wrongly handed scissors, the same thumb and hand pushing sideways effect serves to slightly pry the blades apart from each other, rather than forcing them tightly together. Righty scissors held in the left hand or lefty scissors held in the right hand cut like crap. Because the blades are being forced apart, not together, by the natural leverage of how your hand moves as it closes the blades.
For brand new high quality very sharp scissors the difference may not be obvious. For scissors with a bit of wear or a slightly loose bolt the difference is very obvious.
Another, more minor effect:
Frequently, when cutting, you are cutting on a line of some kind, and wish to stay on that line. If you have RH scissors and are cutting from the right hand of, say, a piece of paper, then the upper blade is the right-most one and does not visually block the cut line (assuming your eyes are above and to the left of the scissors). The bottom blade acts as an “anvil” and the cut object can rest on it.
Reverse the situation and you’ll find it’s hard to see where you’re cutting. The upper blade blocks your sight of the cut line. And the bottom blade does not work as well as a rest for the object being cut.
I’ve told this before: Years ago, our Girl Scout troop was doing a weekend thing in Wildwood, NJ (from northern Virginia). We all got together at the meeting point, and one of the moms who was driving had hardcopy directions for everyone.
“I don’t need it, I’ve got my GPS” sez one mom (this was before smartphones).
We got to the hotel, and I called her and said “hey, we’re about to go for dinner; if you’re close, we’ll wait for you”.
“Um… we’re waiting for the ferry right now”.
Yeah, her GPS took her via the ferry from Lewes, DE to Cape May, NJ. Saved her 60 miles.
These tools are absolutely no substitute for common sense.
I had GPS lead me to the middle of an empty field when I was trying to get to the IKEA in Elizabeth NJ. It was in the relatively early days of iPhone GPS, but still…
It pays, even these days, to double check the origin, destination, and what general route it wants to take you.
That reminds me of a story from elementary school. We were doing some craft project in class. Before handing out scissors the teacher asked everyone who was left handed to raise their hand, so she could give them left handed scissors. I didn’t raise my hand, because I’m not left handed. But I was semi-ambidextrous (though I’m pretty much entirely right handed now). So I picked up my scissors with whatever hand was convenient, which happened to be the left. And the scissors wouldn’t cut. So I called the teacher over.
Her, noticing I was attempting to use the scissors with me left hand: “You’re left handed. Why didn’t you raise your hand when I asked?”
Me: “I’m not left handed… oh, is that the problem?” switches hands “Ok, that’s better.”
But you’re focusing on the blades and not the handles! Your picture shows scissors designed for use with a specific hand, because there’s a large finger hole and a small thumb hole. I’m talking about scissors like this:
Both handle holes are the same size and shape. You can hold it in either hand with the blades facing either direction. This type of scissors aren’t inherently left-handed or right-handed. They work equally well (or equally badly) with either hand.
No, they do not, for the reasons explained repeatedly above. Those are right-handed scissors, and will work poorly when used with your left hand. That’s due to the geometry of the blades, not the shape of the handles.
To be fair, Fiskar advertises those as suitable for left and right-handed use:
Double-loop handle offers excellent control for right- and left-handed users, while Softgrip® touchpoints help reduce hand fatigue for extended use
However, as mentioned, that still requires a blade and pivot design that works for both. Which is by no means guaranteed in general, even if the finger rings are symmetrical.
They are, of course, still right-hand scissors, which is defined as having the top blade on the right when the scissors are pointed forward. And there are still the visibility factors.
Years ago, I got a grilling tool set. The handles of the skewers were made of plastic.
Well, plastic with a metal covering. But since skewers are meant to stay on the grill for some length of time, the result was exactly what you might expect.
I actually contained to the Kingsford, since their name was on the set. Never heard back, but the set was taken off the market very quickly.
I once had a gas grill that came with a rotisserie motor and the usual ~30" long 1/4" cross-section chromed steel skewer for doing whole chickens, rolled beef roasts, etc.
The skewer handle was something akin to Bakelite, but doubtless some much more modern Space Age miracle hard plastic polymer. In a very mod hard-to-grip triangular cross-section of tapering size, and utterly smooth. Totally state of the art late 1970s stuff.
The polymer handle had no problem with melting. But its heat transfer characteristics were about the same as the steel it was molded to. You only grabbed that handle barehanded once it your lifetime. The burn scars were nearly as long lasting as the memory.
It doesn’t work in near-enough applications, but on some you can click on the year to directly change that.
And in related UX, if you’re dealing with a drop down box, sometimes you can just type what you want into it. For example, when entering your birthdate, instead of scrolling down to 1960, you click the drop down arrow and can then type 1 9 6 0. Same for month and day. (My wife showed me this on her smartphone making me think the phone–at least this time–was smarter than me.)
Neither of these are as widely implemented as I feel they should be.
Yeah, a sensibly constructed UI will allow one or both of these alternatives. In the case of the two I encountered, I tried clicking around in the entry box and the little calendar to try to activate any alternative to the carpal tunnel method. No dice.
That’s what I usually find, too. And since I’m now looking for the better design, my disappointment only grows.
Irony alert. All User Interfaces are designed by committee, and by technicians, not by users.
My example: Ray Ban model #RB81 sunglasses. When the earpieces are folded, the tips rub against the inside of the lenses and rub off the polarized/chromatic coating.
