Some good points. Also, we're all coming from a background in computers that has revolved around the keyboard/mouse input combination for an incredibly long time.
I can imagine that, similar to the children that don't understand why they can't instantly see the photo taken with an old film camera, in a few years we'll have children not understanding why they can't touch the screen on our old laptop.
Having seen how the kids at Gaelscoil.com take to an interactive touch whiteboard I have no doubt but that multi-touch will be a fundamental element of the UI going forward. Observing one 8 year old build a model house in Sketchup by pushing and pulling surfaces with his fingers, just as he might with play-doh, convinced me of this.
I used to give PC lessons a few years ago and remember vividly the trouble I had teaching one 50-year old how to use a mouse. This lady was plenty smart and used to be a secretary before she became a mother but she'd never actually seen someone using a mouse so her only reference point was a TV remote. Thus she started out by holding it in the air and waving it like a wand. In hindsight I wish that, instead of immediately correcting her, I'd thought more deeply about why she was doing what she was doing, and I might have come up with the Air Mouse, before Logitech - http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/3443&cl=US,EN
Most of Vizitant's customer will have similar difficulty using the regular mouse and thus we're investigating various configuration of touchscreen and joypad control. As such I've got an Asus AiGuru SV1 Skype Videophone on order and will report back later on how elderly users take to it's novel interface.
2 comments so far
Some good points. Also, we're all coming from a background in computers that has revolved around the keyboard/mouse input combination for an incredibly long time.
I can imagine that, similar to the children that don't understand why they can't instantly see the photo taken with an old film camera, in a few years we'll have children not understanding why they can't touch the screen on our old laptop.
1 year ago by alexleonard
Having seen how the kids at Gaelscoil.com take to an interactive touch whiteboard I have no doubt but that multi-touch will be a fundamental element of the UI going forward. Observing one 8 year old build a model house in Sketchup by pushing and pulling surfaces with his fingers, just as he might with play-doh, convinced me of this.
I used to give PC lessons a few years ago and remember vividly the trouble I had teaching one 50-year old how to use a mouse. This lady was plenty smart and used to be a secretary before she became a mother but she'd never actually seen someone using a mouse so her only reference point was a TV remote. Thus she started out by holding it in the air and waving it like a wand. In hindsight I wish that, instead of immediately correcting her, I'd thought more deeply about why she was doing what she was doing, and I might have come up with the Air Mouse, before Logitech - http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/3443&cl=US,EN
Most of Vizitant's customer will have similar difficulty using the regular mouse and thus we're investigating various configuration of touchscreen and joypad control. As such I've got an Asus AiGuru SV1 Skype Videophone on order and will report back later on how elderly users take to it's novel interface.
1 year ago by EirePreneur