Multi-touch me, multi-touch you

Original photo by StrangrThanCandy

Multi-touch. It’s beginning to change how we think about interacting with computers and devices all around it.

In a land so young, what fruits can multi-touch bear for us? And are we ready for its ubiquitous debut?

Contextual feedback

So far the mass-market multi-touch screens we’ve seen in demos and on the street are all oneway. Won’t it be really interesting when the screen touches us back? Contextual feedback is going to be massive. And it’s already here – in a fashion.

The vibrate function is a contextual feedback alert. Caveman as it is, it is a cheap and cheery of the alerting attention of the phone user. It’s already plugged into the AudioServicesPlaySystemSound function of the iPhone SDK. But imagine making this function beefier, imagine using it in space.

Spatial Awareness

The iPhone’s firmware 2.2 is due for release next week and one of the big feature wins we are promised is Google Street View on the iPhone. I wonder what baked-in gestures we’ll get. What will it be like to play with? Rotating aspect is going to be fun. Multi-touch and spatial interaction could offer some really nice scenarios.

Taking this to computerland, Apple is already looking at making the trackpad a big Kahuna. A space where trackpad touches and keyboard functions are bundled together. Could a super trackpad also give feedback with changes in terrain or topology on the screen? A vibrate sensation that gets stronger as you scroll across distinctive landmarks on a map perhaps?  There are so many interesting directions reactive contextual feedback could be used on multitouch surfaces.

Are you sure you want fries with that?

Imagine being able to setup sites on your iPhone that could alert you when important decisions are need to be made and yes/no choice needs to be taken. I’m not advocating for a UAC system, but rather an opt-in preference console, where you can define the sites and actions that you want to be alerted on. This would have to be a browser specific preference.

You may only use this function on one or two sites, but it would be used in taking important decision-making actions. Imagine being able to setup an alert when you are making important banking transfers. A reminder, a notification.

The important thing to stress about this feature is that it has to be opt-in. And it has to be secure.

Global Sensual Support

How many benefits could contextual feedback on trackpad make those with visual disabilities? Imagine the power of listening for and projecting touch to those users? And not in a specialised/expensive way either. Accessibility touch stylee.

Were this technology readily available on laptops with trackpads or plug and play peripherals for the desktop, users could simply turn it on. Mass adoption of this technology by manufacturers means universal availability, so moving from one computer to the next is not a trial.

Multi-touch Bubble

In the last OpenCoffee, after watching the Windows 7 demo from PDC the topic of multi-touch technology came up – is it viable? / who uses it? / would it be bad ergonomics? / perhaps multi-touch perpherals are the future? Interesting thoughts.

Wouldn’t it be nice to take the idea of a multi-touch as addedum to your desktop and make it a peripheral too? Call it the Multi-touch Bubble (sexy name comes later after my Angel round!).

The Bubble is so named as it’s a shallow hemisphere. Something that feels good in my palm. A place to rest my hand and when I want to use Multi-touch, an easy place to rotate, zoom or move my content.  You see I’m lazy. I don’t want unnecessary fiddling to find my Multi-touch device. I want a hammock.

The hemisphere is sunk into a moate. My fingers want space to twist too. And the surface must be strong, yet something I want to touch. Preferably, I want a surface that feels like  warm marble  (an impossibility, I know). Perhaps a smooth compound? Alu, metal or cheap plastic is not a place I want to rest my hand on for extended periods. Think of the sweat. Eugh.

So the Bubble will have all of the standard multi-touch gestures, like rotate, pinch etc, would it be nice to play teacher too? You ought to be able to train the Bubble. Imagine it has a clear surface. When I choose to train the Bubble, coloured tracks of my fingers tracing the movement are replayed back to me. I can see a real-time replay of the gesture and then map it to some movement I record or describe to the training software. I don’t have all the answers, but simply having the option to train new gestures outside the scope of standard interactions expands my Bubble’s multi-touch language.

There are just so many applications of the Bubble too. For example, can you imagine having a Bubble as the head of the gear stick in your car. Having immediate access to climate controls or your stereo, without moving your attention from the road. Amazing. I’d love a robocar of the future with one of those.

Ideas, Shmideas – The Future is in Our Homes

Multi-touch is such a young technology. Devices that use it won’t be the sorts of Jetson tech demos we’re used to seeing. It’s far more likely that embedded devices will slowly and silently adopt multi-touch as a big UI path. Gadgets in our homes, like microwaves or washing machines.

It’s likely that many devices with manual knobs and switches will turn to multi-touch interfaces to simplify and humanise their control panels. I’d love to see my mother use a multi-touch dryer, wouldn’t you?

November 13th, 2008 at 2:04 pm • Filed in Design, Geekery



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