A touchy truth

I was looking at laptops again over the weekend. I realise that a lot of manufacturers are now opting for touch interfaces, instead of the old tactile ones that we have become accustomed to. Gone are the good old button bashing days. This made me start thinking that the current craze of our generation is being ‘touchy’. This started with the I-phone and several me too wannabe’s followed.
In truth is touch such a great thing. Is it as reliable the age old button? Touch screen phones for examples can’t compete with full QWERTY phones. Yet we now have ‘multi-touch’ keypads on laptops. I still can’t figure out how useful that will be. True the next version of Windows is supposed to support it, and in Windows vista the two finger drag acts similar to holding the ctrl key down and scrolling, but what is the big deal?
On the plus side, for the fans of Star Trek the Next Generation, maybe we can expect some kind of futuristic ‘L-Cars’ interface system becoming possible. And if we take a bigger leap, Minority Report like gesture interfaces are unlikely to be in minority in the years ahead!

The web that may be

It is interesting to think about what the web is going to be in the years ahead. From its early days of static HTML pages to today’s dynamic driven pages and rich Flash content, the web has certainly come a long way.

Two new developments have made me wonder what we can expect to see in the future. The next version of windows is just at our doorstep with its promised support of a multi-touch interface. I also notice that we now have touch monitors starting to enter the market, though still not very easy to get your hands on. This makes me wonder if the web of years ahead is going to evolve to meet the touch generation.

It is natural to expect us to have website which are more touch friendly. Larger buttons to minimize the possibility of a wrong click. What’s more with the multiple touch feature that is going to be implemented, websites are likely to have more draggable and sliding options. What this does for website usability is a point to ponder. We can only wait and watch and muse about things to come.