I was perping around Jakob Nielsen's site this evening and found this article from Forbes about the growing dominance of touch screens on our gadgets. Apparently Microsoft will be putting touch-screen "capabilities" into the next version of Windows - test-driving the popularity of this technology on your computer instead of your phone. Sony has a touch-screen camera; Samsung has a touch-screen music player; and so on.
How do people feel about this, generally? Nielsen says this technology has existed for over 30 years (crazy! Wait a minute - I'm almost 30.) and that it is more "intuitive" and "direct" than using a mouse. Is this another one of those things where I'm being old-fashioned? I heard from several friends who got the new Blackberry Storm (which is touch-screen) that they wanted to switch back to their old one; that the new ones are lame. I wonder if it's more a matter of getting used to new technology, or if indeed the touch-screen version isn't as user-friendly. I don't hear those same complaints from people who have iPhones - but then, who would dare impugn the iPhone?
It would seem that this touch-screen technology is effective on gadgets with fewer, simpler options, so I am curious to see how the new Windows version fares. And if it does well, imagine the realms that will lead to. Web design and consumer usability would become whole other animals, wouldn't they? There would be less on a website's homepage (finger size!), and therefore more to navigate through; but would this be tolerable because it's easier to tap a screen with your finger a few times than to click a mouse the same amount?
One of the readers left a comment on the article's website, saying that the technology for voice-recognition/option software is on its way, and will eventually replace "most keyboard and many mouse functions." Is anyone else horrified by this idea? We already have restaurants and buses and streets filled with people talking on their phones instead of to the people around them; will the next step be people talking to their computers? We have more of a relationship with our gadgets than with each other. Which is getting off the topic...
Would you buy a touch-screen computer, when (not if) they come out? Do you think this technology is better, more user-friendly? Do you think the design of websites for consumer purposes will have to change drastically? For me, it indicates a further shift away from text, toward graphics. We are increasingly a culture of images, hieroglyphs, shorthand.
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Touch-screen personal computers? I don't know how I feel about that. I think they make sense for ATMs, etc. I've used touch-screen computers at work (restaurants) since 1988. They are a HUGE advantage, but talk about a germ factory. All those fingers sharing the same screen...yuck.
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