Applications

Touch improves a user interface in two ways. It improves user satisfaction. More importantly, it improves user performance. Often it can do both.

Touch-enabled user interfaces improve user performance by supplementing visual and audio information. In some settings, and among some users, visual and auditory feedback are poor or inappropriate conductors of information. For example:

• In a car, controls that operate by sight draw the driver's attention from the road.
• In an office, audio feedback disturbs nearby colleagues.
• Users with imperfect sight, hearing, or neuromuscular control may have difficulty operating visual and audio interfaces.

Even under excellent conditions for viewing and hearing, touch substantially improves user performance. Consider this:

How is it that a person can drink a cup of coffee while simultaneously reading a newspaper?

• Release grip on paper, casually adjusting other hand's grip to compensate for paper sag. Perhaps rest bottom of paper in lap (without looking)
• While still reading (perhaps slower), slowly feel around table for coffee mug, adjusting direction based on feel.
• When found, feel for handle and grip.
• Bring mug to lips, keeping mug level, rotating arm and wrist appropriately (by weight and grip pressure).
• Tilt mug back when mug is felt against lips.
• Return mug to table slowly, adjusting course if small collisions detected. Notice that you do not even need to look at the table, you can feel it through the mug!
• And you never lost your position on the page.

Now imagine without force feedback...

First, try to imagine holding the paper or turning the pages without feeling them!

• Release grip of one hand
• Visually identify path for arm to take. Bumping into things will only be known if it causes unexpected movement.
• View placement of fingers on mug handle
• Slowly lift mug, watching for unexpected rotation... since you cannot FEEL slipping or weight... you must be cautious about how much force you use... too much and coffee will shoot everywhere... too little grip and the mug will tip!
• Think about how you will bring the mug to your lips without the sense of touch. Will you use mirrors?
• Will you check your shirt for spills after every sip?
• Remember to watch your grip, proximity to table, and arm movement as you return the mug to the table.
• Now try finding the edge of the paper again without feeling for it.

So many actions are made easy with the sense of touch.

This example has a direct counterpart in computer user interfaces. Without touch, the reader of a long document must interrupt his or her reading, visually move the pointer to the scroll bar, click to view the next page, and resume reading. For subsequent pages, clicking in place works, provided that the user has not inadvertently moved the pointer. If a scroll bar had the feel of a trough and tended to attract and hold the pointer within it, or give a tap when the pointer passed over it, the reader could find and operate the scroll bar without thought and without losing time by suspending and resuming his or her reading. In this example, and many more, touch improves performance by making the desktop feel like the physical world. Utilizing the highly developed human sense of touch to gather, process, and act upon information improves user performance.

Desktop Computing

Web Computing

Gaming