We want to touch
Posted by Nicola
The idea for this article started when I saw this video showing an application for the iPhone. It’s an application for tracking your weight and BMI. You’re probably thinking it’s an useless application unless you’re a top model or more than 400 pounds. Well I’m surely neither, I just found it Stumbling.
The application is simple and does just a couple of things but it does them in a very easy and pleasant way and since a person on a diet could be quite stressed I think this is even more important.
What impressed me is the completely new way to interact with the application, no keyboard nor keypad emulators, just turn wheels and other knobs with such a good response time you could think you’re interacting with a real device. The confidence is also improved by proper sounds feedback, not the usual “ding” “bing”. I don’t know about studies on visual and sound signals but I think that sound signals are elaborated faster by our brain because they’re simpler.
But I want to go further, during the last months we’ve all been exposed to many videos, tv ads and direct experience with touch enabled devices that has aroused the global desire to interact differently with our phones, multimediaplayers and PCs. Personally when working with the PC I often feel the will to grab a whole window with my hand and throw it away instead of clicking the close button, it would be much more fun! So what I would like to understand is: should the new applications consumed by PC users be rethinked and provide a touchscreen interface? Would the users prefer it? And since we’re in business could a touchscreen interface be more productive?
While preparing this post a first important answer to the first question arrived, the new Windows (code named Windows 7, expected to retail by 2009) will natively use the touchscreen technology, all the videos I’ve seen shows the user interaction this way. That means we’re going to see a huge explosion of new applications touch enabled.
Here are some of the most intereseting videos showing Windows 7 touchscreen applications:
Since two giants as Apple and Microsoft are moving in this direction we could answer yes, let’s rethink our applications in therms of touch interaction but I want to find better reasons or if you prefer less commercial reasons. Let’s think about what people usually do with a PC: enter letters and contracts, enter data into spreadsheets or management applications, read and write e-mails, surf the web, manipulate images and videos, play video games, create content for the web. When entering data and specially text I think the better thing to touch is a keyboard but when entering numbers there could be cases in which a different interface for example an on screen wheel or a knob could help the user to concentrate on his task and give him more awareness about what he’s adjusting. Except text and numbers when the user is interacting with an object I think that giving him the ability to interact with hands would make him feel immediately more confident with the application. Here the crucial thing is the choice of the metaphor. Think about zooming an image. Some touchscreen applications require you to use 2 fingers moving together outwards or inwards, other applications require the use of 4 fingers (2 per hand), other require to make a circle with a single finger, the radius and center of the circle define the direction of the zoom and the portion of the picture.
Another common situation in which touching could be a good solution is the interaction with a list of data. A rich list (with pictures, title and main details) give the user the idea he’s interacting with an object and touching on it should result in the most common action: open a new screen with details or just select it to enable further actions. This way we could simplify the view as in this example showing a list of videos.
Independently on the situation a crucial factor is the feedback and the response the user gets in reply to his input. With iPhone apps everything moves, every interaction seems to move something as a result: the whole screen scrolls, an item flips, another icon gets larger, … this gives an immediate feeling of really modifing something, it’s not just a screen change! Fluidity and continuity are the keywords.
So did you find cool touch applications? Are you rethinking the interaction for your users in a “touch way”?
Write a comment below and let me know.
Nicola
