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Screenshot of the home screen of an Android phone, which is cropped to show only the Search Bar. On the left side of the field is the multicoloured 'G' Google logo. On the right side of the field are the usual buttons for microphone (to begin verbal entry for a search) and a camera (to begin visual entry for a search). A few pixels to the right of the bar, and encapsulated in the same border as the bar is a button with a sparkly magnifying glass icon. This new button is located where the other buttons used to be, and it's easy to press by accident with the base of your thumb while holding your phone and tapping anywhere else on the screen. This launches an annoying "AI" feature, there seems to be no way to make it go away, and it appears the choice of location is a Deceptive Design.

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Screenshot of the home screen of an Android phone, which is cropped to show only the Search Bar. On the left side of the field is the multicoloured 'G' Google logo. On the right side of the field are the usual buttons for microphone (to begin verbal entry for a search) and a camera (to begin visual entry for a search). A few pixels to the right of the bar, and encapsulated in the same border as the bar is a button with a sparkly magnifying glass icon. This new button is located where the other buttons used to be, and it's easy to press by accident with the base of your thumb while holding your phone and tapping anywhere else on the screen. This launches an annoying "AI" feature, there seems to be no way to make it go away, and it appears the choice of location is a Deceptive Design.
https://mediacdn.aus.social/media_attachments/files/116/083/621/126/699/916/original/8b6958a73017404f.png

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Misinformation-Superhighwayman (damienwise@aus.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 12:33:08 JST Misinformation-Superhighwayman
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@xgranade The location is deliberate, and designed to hijack accidental clicks/taps. Good UI design has reserved areas / padding / empty space around critical or high-risk functions.
Same goes for this Deceptive Design in recent versions of Android. It subverts years of trained muscle-memory for tapping into the search bar. And, too bad if you accidentally make what it considers a tap on the '✨' button with the base of your thumb while you're tapping anywhere else on the screen with the tip of your thumb.

In conversation about 7 months ago from aus.social permalink