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The Age of Touch Computing
DigitalDame2 writes "In 2009, touch computing will go mainstream. More and more devices will be legitimately touch-enabled with gesture controls for browsing through photos, tossing objects around the screen, flicking to turn the page of a book, and even playing video games and watching movies. In fact, Gartner analyst Steve Prentice told the BBC recently that the mouse will be dead in three to five years. PCMag has a full look at touch computing — the past, the present, and the future — including an interview with Sabrina Boler, touch UI designer."
Ridiculous prediction. Can someone explain how it would be "progress" or an "improvement" if, instead of my hand comfortably resting on my desk manipulating the mouse, I would have to repeatedly lift my arm and poke at my screen? Especially since in my case, poor circulation and some arthritis make repeated lifting or movement of my arm rather painful over time. (Not to mention that a self-cleaning screen would be a necessity -- my screen gets dirty enough on its own without my fat fingers smearing it up on a regular basis.)
Touchscreen technology has its place, but this is a perfect example of how a technology some people think is "cool" or "advanced" leads them to feel that it should be universally adopted.
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Also why would I want to be waving my arms at my CRT or LCD screen?
Just earlier today I was thinking about this. I believe that one possible sollution to the "gorilla arm" syndrome is to put the monitor in the place of the keyboard, and move the keyboard a bit down.
The second issue to address (all this IMHO) is the visual feedback. I believe that in order to make touch-based interaction feel more natural, the applications will have to present the information in a more familiar way.
In general, I believe that touch computing can be real and can have advantages as well, however, I also believe that using touch computing does not directly means keyboardless computing as they serve a different purpose.
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I drove an '89 Honda Civic into the ground this month and replaced it with a Prius.
I'm not happy with the touch screen controls at all. For example, turning on the heat. I live in SoCal, one rarely needs to do this.
1. press climate hardware button along the side of the touch screen.
On the touch screen:
2. press recirculate
3. press the appropriate fan speed.
4. press defrost front
5. press defrost rear
Turn the car off and run errand. Repeat steps 1-5 after errand because it doesn't save those settings.
In the Civic, this was all done by feeling for the buttons on the dash and sliding the vent controls. I could do all of that and still keep two eyes on the road. I have to check the touchscreen on the Prius which I don't care for at all.
Given the way desktop computer UI's have only become more complicated, I'm positive the car's touchscreen UI will only get more complicated. That's a bad thing.
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Touch computing fails in every way possible.
I like my monitor perfectly clean. Using displays all covered in finger grease drives me nuts.
Your hands conceal parts of the screen while you're using it.
You can move a mouse over a greater distance much more quickly than your entire hand. It's also much easier to get to a specific pixel / small area with a mouse than with your fat fingertip.
People keep lauding the Minority Report UI like it's a good idea. Do you really want to have to hold your arms up like that and move them around all day?
Positioning the screen ergonomically for use as in input device puts it in a position where you're hanging your head looking down all day. The minority report problem obviously applies if you position your screen at the optimal viewing position.
Others have already mentioned it, but lack of tactile feedback is a big one. This is particularly important for programs whose UIs aren't that great. You hit the touchscreen button - the button didn't move and there was no sound. You can only guess that your button "press" didn't register because nothing happened... but you don't really know. I see this on ATMs all the time.
How is wasting half of your screen real estate on a keyboard a good idea? Oh, you can bring it up dynamically? Oh great, well then I guess you don't get to use keyboard shortcuts. That sucks.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Try the touch pad on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. It works amazingly well - and one of the reasons is that you don't "tap" to click, you click to click. As in, physically press down on it, and feel and hear a click. You can enable "tap" to click but it's off by default, and given the number of misclicks I've made on other touch pads, I rather like it being off.
Several things make this touch pad just work compared to other touch pads I've used:
So you get tactile feedback when clicking, you get a large work area, and you get all those wonderful multi-finger gestures. It works amazingly well, to the point I was trying to use the gestures on my Windows laptop after less than a day of using the MacBook.
Of course, this isn't quite the same as the "touch computing" they're talking about where you touch the screen. And the touch pad is nowhere near as accurate as a mouse (although it's good enough for day-to-day use).
But it does show to me that touch-based gestures do have a future - I just don't think I'll be touching the screen on a full-sized computer any time soon.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
You've touched on my thoughts regarding touch screens. I have a tablet, iPhone, Storm, treo due to work. Also have a ATM card so more touch screen use there. Also have a few "real" laptops, blackberry curve, keyboards, etc.
What I've found is a touch screen is good for simple data input. Call it one-dimensional. Pick from this menu of choices. Manipulate this single object. Basically something you can do with one hand...usually 1-2 fingers. For this, it's quick.
Once you get more complex, call it two-dimensional, things slow to a crawl on a touch screen. Typing is either slow or error prone. Multi-hand manipulation? Well sure, but your eyes can't pick out enough detail over the area of two hands to be of much use. This is where a keyboard and/or mouse become much more efficient. They're faster and I equate faster with better.
So touch computing will grow somewhat. it will comtinue to be refined and useful for one-dimensional data input. Simple selection/manipulation. Good luck getting me to lift my hands off the keyboard to the screen just to do something i would with a mouse. Heck, i use keyboard shortcuts so I don't have to move my hand off to the mouse when possible. The time saved might be 1-3 seconds...but i do it a thousand times a day.
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A complicated set of mirrors placed all over the desk could solve that problem, but it presents its own new set of problems. One alone would not be good, need even amount to get rid of the 'mirror image' problem. Actually, I said this jokeingly, but it would allow you to be able to have have rather small monitor, at say 12", but a really high resolution, optically blown up in front of you. It would also make your hand massive though. Getting all those optics lined up would just be a nighmare though.
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Good point. I think a touchscreen's inability to address deeper "two-dimensional" interfaces is what many have overlooked. They see touchscreens all over and assume that means they can do anything. As a means of ordering fast food a touchscreen could be great. Tap the picture of what you want, choose from a list of customizations (no pickles?), and then pick your drink. I think the line is drawn between content creation and simple content viewing / wizard type uses.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.