Online casino design is at the cutting edge of UX innovation. Requiring tactile responses, it has taken a thumb-first one-hand approach.
When a UX designer builds an online casino for mobile, the first question is not which games to feature or what colour scheme to use. It is: where will the player’s thumb be?
That question, unglamorous as it sounds, determines nearly everything else about how the product feels to use and whether a player stays or leaves within the first thirty seconds.
The Concept of the Thumb Zone
In ‘Designing Mobile Interfaces’, published in 2011, Steven Hoober and Eric Berkman introduced the seminal concept of the ‘Thumb Zone’. Research into mobile interaction has found that thumb use plays a major role in smartphone navigation, especially during one-handed use.
This zone is the area that users can comfortably reach with their right thumb, increasing the ease of the user journey and crucially increasing conversions.
These zones on a mobile device are divided into three areas:
- Green – Bottom centre where thumb can reach without much movement
- Yellow – Mid side screens that require stretching
- Red – Top corners and hard-to-reach areas. It requires two hands.
Josh Clark further extrapolated on this with his ‘Designing for Touch’ released in 2015. He found that around 80-90% of actions on a device are done using the thumb.
The same logic applies to how online casinos structure their pages for Australian players. Mobile-focused design considers how people naturally hold and navigate their phones, placing frequently used elements within the lower part of the screen where the thumb can reach comfortably.
You can see this in practice on the Vegastars promotions page here; bonus listings are presented in an accessible position on mobile. It is a small layout decision, but one that shows the difference between a page designed specifically for mobile use and one that has simply been resized to fit a smaller screen.
When it comes to an online casino, the design across most platforms seems to be ubiquitous. Colour choices and graphics may change, but they all have menus in the same places, with only slight variations. This is due to the thumb zone, and it is a tried and tested design that works.
When you log onto a slot game, you will often find the icons are in the same positions. Those allowing people to spin, or deal in a casino title, will be on the right-hand side within thumb reach.
Digging deeper, the operators’ lobbies and lounges will follow similar principles, with the most popular quick-access games within easy thumb reach.
Sergey Ghazaryan is the Head of the Casino Unit at GR8_TECH, designers of turnkey online casino solutions. When discussing the balance between visuals and usability in a 2024 article on their website titled “What Makes Online Casino Design Truly Memorable?”, he noted that.
“Nothing affects the first impression more than an image. But this is not the ‘eye of the beholder’ thing; the impact of the visual aspect of an online venture, especially in iGaming, is accurately quantifiable through vigorous testing and analytics. The stats an operator receives from the analytics team remind them that behind the flashing lights of virtual slots must lie a meticulous design strategy to create a truly memorable experience.”
The Impact on Player Experience
The table below contains data provided by Higocreative.com and is taken from a study titled 40+ UX Statistics (Mobile, Speed, Design, and More).
It shows just how important UX is to people visiting websites and applications, and the impact it can have on how likely they are to stay on a platform.
| UX Statistic | % |
| Users less likely to return to a bad UX website | 88 |
| Website visitors who leave if a page takes longer than three seconds to load | 53 |
| Increase in conversion rates between bad UX and good UX websites | 400 |
| Users more likely to buy from a mobile friendly company | 67 |
| Potential revenue lost due to bad UX | 35 |
In the first instance, using this design methodology in Australian online casinos reduces physical fatigue. Consider the cramps and aches that would ensue if someone were reaching to screen corners every time they want to spin a reel. It just would not be possible.
Another result of using this type of design is the reduction of accidental clicks. These can be extremely infuriating, especially when combined with slow-loading webpages.
For operators, it can provide false data, with people seemingly accessing products then leaving them quickly. All of this means that navigation icons must be of a given size.
Lastly, the results arrive as faster conversions. If a person can log on, sign in, and make a deposit in a quick motion, then they are playing and paying faster. All of this enhances the fluidity of the sales funnel.
Platforms like Vegastars demonstrate this in practice. A player landing on their bonuses page can scroll, select, and move toward claiming an offer in just a few taps, with no need to hunt across the screen.
Australia at the Forefront of Innovation
Aristocrat Gaming are an Australian manufacturer of gambling machines and games. The largest of its kind in Australia, and one of the biggest in the world, they are at the forefront of development and research into online casino gaming and the impact of quality design.
The company has a dedicated research department, which tries to understand the needs and wants of players across divisions. They recently managed to streamline their UX and CX (Customer experience) into a single platform, bringing all their tools together.
This was done through the use of video feedback and discussion tools, with an aim to expand research methods and UX testing capabilities.
Able to now collect 200 responses in under an hour, they can question focus groups, use diary studies, concept testing, experience testing, and competitive analysis all in one place, making Australia a hub for iGaming research.
One other consideration is the integration of responsible gambling tools. Operators must blend and balance the need to let players engage fluidly, but without encouraging gambling that could go too far.
Decisions on where to locate tools, such as deposit limits and self-exclusion tools, are paramount. Unfortunately, there has been very little research into where these should be placed and their effectiveness in different areas.
Many casinos locate them in the helpful information sections. Yet it could be argued that onscreen guidance within games may be more useful.
Thus, the principles of thumb first and one-handed design are being employed across industries, from those making language apps to retail websites. Yet casinos present some very unique challenges, in that they are primarily a form of entertainment that requires tactile responses to keep playing.
With companies in the countries specialising in and researching this, it will remain at the forefront of innovation.
Responsible Gambling Disclaimer – Gambling should be treated as entertainment, not a way to make money. Always play responsibly, stay within your financial means and take regular breaks when needed. If gambling starts to feel difficult to manage, free and confidential support is available.
