UX buzzspree » multi-touch

Jakob Nielsen on iPad

gary — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:42:26 +0000

Jakob Nielsen on iPad. He has the results of some testing he did on the iPad interface.

iPad by byrion

Most of the insights relate to app design and not the iPad itself. In other words, most of the usability is within the app designer’s control.

To exacerbate the problem, once they do figure out how something works, users can’t transfer their skills from one app to the next. Each application has a completely different UI for similar features.

Android Touch-keyboard Enhancement

gary — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:03:11 +0000

Google’s new Android Mobile operating system is getting a lot of positive press since it’s introduction. My group has an android phone for testing I plan to get my hands on soon.
One interesting innovation (related to typing) is called Swype. It’s a typing method that allows the user to slide the finger around the keyboard while software figures out what word they are trying to type. Here’s a video of Swype in action.

Contrast with the way apple enhances touch keyboards. The iPhone anticipated the next letters you are likely to type and invisibly makes the target for these keys larger. So, if you come close to hitting a likely key but hit the edge of it’s neighbor, it “knows” what you meant.
Both phones can sometimes be confused by ambiguous choices. Android is shown handling this in the video with a pop-up menu. iPhone tells you which word it is expecting, allowing you to hit space to auto-complete it. I don’t know if Android has auto-complete but they do have an easy way to correct a word by double clicking. The Apple solution doesn’t offer a simple correct (that I have yet discovered).

‘See-through’ touchscreens

gary — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:53:34 +0000

New Scientist has a report on a “see through” touch screen that solves the problem of fingers obscuring the view of the screen during use. This seems to be a helpful and useful addition to small touch screens like on cell-phones, game systems, cameras and PDA’s. Of course, larger touch screens like Kiosks have less of a problem with obscuring view so this technology would not be appropriate. (You don’t usually hold the back of the screen on a kiosk.)

Video: The new NanoTouch device in action

Electronic devices have been shrinking for years, but you might be forgiven for thinking that one that’s only a centimetre across would be just too difficult to operate.

Now tests of a prototype device only slightly larger than this have shown that it can be made perfectly usable by combining a screen on the front with a touch-sensitive pad on the back. Read more…

Touch screens Rising

gary — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:59:22 +0000

A report from Gartner covered below predicts that more computers will incorporate touch screens and other interfaces while the mouse will loose favor. I agree more desktop and laptop computers will have touch, including multi-touch. I’d expect Apple to lead the way in this very soon (or take the credit after some other company releases touch computers without any media interest).

The computer mouse is set to die out in the next five years and will be usurped by touch screens and facial recognition, analysts believe.

Gartner said that innovations from electronics firms creating new interactive interfaces for gaming and smartphones are driving the demise of the mouse. Read more…

More “Minority Report” type UX…

gary — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:50:00 +0000

More “Minority Report” type UX… It makes my arms tired just looking at it but this is interesting in that the images are somehow projected into space.

Read the article.

The video:

Obscura VisionAire Interface