I often find myself thinking about where we’re headed in terms of interacting with our computers and mobile phones and other devices. Touch screen technology has been around a fair while now, but it’s strangely still not widely implemented. Sure, there’s those interactive kiosks for customer self-service that are becoming popular for all sorts of things, though in Australia they’re most common for photo processing and printing at photo stores and ticket machines at train stations. There’s touch screen technology for people with disabilities who can’t easily use a mouse and keyboard. Touch screen technology is implemented in quite a few different industries such as retail, food (restaurants) and automation. And then, of course, there’s the Nintendo DS, a number of different PDAs, the iPhone and the iPod Touch, and several others general user gadgets with touch screen tech on the horizon. And I’m sure there’s many, many more uses that I’ve missed.

Dr. Samuel C. Hurst, founder of Elo TouchSystems, invented the first touch screen in 1971. But it’s only in the last five or so years that touch screen technology has become popular in consumer devices. Why is this? The clunky mouse and keyboard are still being used for most computers. Shouldn’t we have progressed to something better by now?

These are the main reasons why I think device interaction hasn’t progressed quite as much as it possibly should have.

1. Ergonomics: Everyone needs to use their gadgets comfortably. Simply put, if a system to interact with a device can’t be used comfortably, people won’t use it. For some devices, touch screens work really well. Handheld gadgets obviously benefit a lot. Using a small keyboard with tiny keys (ie: those found on many smartphones) proves problematic for many people. However, there’s always the factor of placing unwanted stress on the arms, hands and fingers. This is often due to the actual physical shape of the device just as much as the touch screen itself. For example, playing my Nintendo DS for more than an hour at a time makes my hands hurt. It’s actually quite difficult to hold due to the weight distribution and only holding it in one hand when playing games that require the stylus. It also wouldn’t be practical to implement touch screens on a desktop computer, at least not for the majority of its uses. Having to reach over and touch the screen repetitively could result in many cases of repetitive strain injury.
2. Lack of precision: How many words per minute can you type? How long does it take you to click on an icon on the desktop? The beauty of the mouse and keyboard are their precision and speed. Many graphic designers and artists also use a graphics tablet for their work, allowing them even greater accuracy by using it just like they’d use a pencil. These systems are tried and true, and are the reason they’re so widely adopted. The iPhone and iPod Touch on the other hand are, well, a lot less accurate and much, much slower when it comes to user input. They do what they’re made to do easily enough, but if it came to advanced functions like an extensive amount of text input or the need for extreme accuracy, they become almost unusable. PDAs that use stylii are slightly better when it comes to accuracy due to less surface area of the stylus tip compared to a finger, but the problem is that the user’s hand or the stylus blocks their vision of what they’re trying to point at or click on. A solution to this that I discovered at the Wired Gadget Lab is the LucidTouch: a see-through multi-touch screen, still in the early stages of development, but it looks very promising. In essence, it “allows the user to control it from behind and ’see’ their fingers”, eliminating the problem of your fingers blocking the screen. At the moment, I’m really seeing its potential, but I think it would have to be extremely comfortable to hold and use for it to work well.
3. Screen marks and fingerprints: There’s something extremely satisfying of using a device where its input system is the same as its output system. However, having used my iPod Touch for less than a full day, I noticed the trail of smudgy fingerprints that it leaves behind. Whilst this isn’t too bothersome most of the time, one can easily see it as a major problem on, say, a laptop or desktop computer with a touch screen. Having to clean the screen each time you use it or when you want to watch a movie on it or do a presentation sure wouldn’t be the most productivity-enhanced device ever made. It just doesn’t seem quite feasible at this point in time, at least not until someone invents a fingerprint resistant or self-cleaning screen or a separate touch screen used in conjunction with the main screen. Relying on a stylus also isn’t a ’solution’ in itself. I find stylii to be quite annoying and too easy to drop or lose, so I’d rather just put up with the fingerprints.

So, what does the future hold for the way in which we interact with our computers and digital devices?

Well, I can’t see the trusty old mouse and keyboard going away any time soon. As ‘yesterday’ as they are, it seems nothing else compares to them in terms of speed, accuracy and dependability.

However, with the iPhone and iPod Touch taking over at the moment - as well as all the blatant rip-offs of these devices - I can see a number of devices going the touch screen route very, very soon (many already have!). It’s ‘cool’ at the moment, there’s no doubt about it, and for simple devices with specific functions, the technology works well.

In the not too distant future I envision voice recognition to become a lot more advanced and therefore much more widely adopted for a number of different uses. A lot of work is being done on technological advancements for people with disabilities, such as brain-computer interface systems. It’s true, scientists have actually made it possible for people to interact with a computer using nothing but brainwaves, the technology being developed for people who are quadriplegic. I saw this technology in use on a TV program a few years ago, the users were able to move a cursor around on a screen by simply willing it to. However, it took a lot of training for the users to get to that stage, and the technology still has a long way to go. But it just goes to show what we, as human beings, are able to achieve, and it’s pretty damn exciting to say the least.

I suppose the sky is the limit when it comes to interacting with technology, and I think we’ve only just scratched the surface of the possibilities out there. I just hope I get to see all this cool new tech during my lifetime.

What kinds of technologies for device interaction would everyone else like to see in the future?

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