[OLR] Exercise 7.1 Smart screen interface case study

Touchscreens feature three main components: a screen that has a touch responsive sensor laid over it, a controller, and a software driver. Basically the touchscreen registers an electrical difference when it is touched. The touchscreen is connected to an input device called a controller and which acts as a 'go between' between the touchscreen and the software driver / program that converts the touch gestures into actions. (Source http://www.touchscreens.com/intro-anatomy.html)

A touchscreen device improves the display or interaction over any alternative devices like mobile phones, iPod touches and Nintendo DS's (to name a few examples) for interesting reasons.

Touching is direct - but that's not a reason that makes touch better than pointing with a mouse. But the directness allows one to start to do new things. For example Apple's "Pinch Zoom" function on iPhones and iPod touches and even via the new Macbook Pro mousepads, that allow people to do something, once they are shown how to do it, that can immediately feel natural to the user.

Once a person gets used to zooming in this sort of way, ever imaging zooming by sliding a scale or grabbing a corner and dragging it out (even if done by touch) begins to seem like a step backwards and less elegant. That would be an example of doing an old thing in a new way (dragging with a mouse replaced by dragging directly). Rather, touch opens up the opportunity to do new things in new ways. As others have noted:

"It’s hard to conceive of a more efficient way to perform zooming with human hands. ... it provides functionality with no screen space required for controls, and provides a tactility that is extremely gratifying at what must be a very low level of the brain. The benefit of pinch-to-zoom over previous zooming methods is so immediately apparent that it justifies the learning curve. That the learning curve is extremely small also helps."

I would argue that the functionality provided by a touch screen display can improve both display and interaction with a computer device because it allows the display to be used in a way that is both directly input and output and the same time - like a real physical device but in ways that transcends reality and breaks away from older 'desktop' point and click / double-click metaphors.