Why is 1 the first number on the telephone keypad?

I doubt it is something that anyone has ever given any thought to, how the configuration of numbers on push-button phones was arrived at.

Surprisingly the answer involves focus groups and user testing, a level of customer consultation that is surely unheard of when referring to Telecommunication companies today…

The focus groups were tested on keying times (error rates were calculated) and asked which they preferred aesthetically. It’s especially cool to note how the winner, the now-standard 3×3 plus 1, had a much larger error rate than the two vertical columns. Yet the two vertical columns arrangement was the least preferred overall. It seems the most popular, and the one the focus groups had the least trouble working, was the one that mimicked what they were already used to: the standard rotary dial. I guess like Ma Bell, the designers got the ill communication… and went with the new one that scored best across the boards, hoping future generations would forget the dials of the past.

The focus groups were given 18 keypad layouts to test and comment on.

I wonder if anyone, at the time of this study in 1960, had the slightest notion that one day much smaller keypads would become commonplace with the arrival of mobile phones, and just how suitable the “3×3 plus 1″ configuration that was selected – as opposed to some of the options – would prove to be.