As touch screens become more popular, it forces designers to adapt to the touch technology. At first it was thought to be intuitive and most things wold stay the same and the finger would act as a mouse. The problem though, is the finger has no way of indicating an “over” position. Although there are technologies that can do this, most electronics from cellphones to the iPad don’t use it. So it got me thinking…
The on-touch-down is a solution, whereby the person would push down and be able to see additional information. In order to remove the details one would just release. To do a click, the user would tap in a quick motion to indicate a tap. Of course with this method, research would be required to determine optimal timing for these events.
Another alternative would be to put the call-to-action always within the details area. The downside to this being it’s an extra step for more experienced users who have visited the site or kiosk or whatever it is. It means they have to dig to get where they want to go.
The touch is definitely taking over and things are progressively becoming more gestural…in thinking about what exists today. Maybe we should be asking the the deaf what we should be doing seeing as they are masters of gesture…
