The Problem with Computer Touch Screens
Okay, so touch-screens are certainly not a new thing, and even integrating them into laptops are not even new (Microsoft and its partners have been doing so since the early 2000’s), but have always remained a niche market. There are a couple of reasons.
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The touch technology has no been very good until capacitive touch – that is, they’ve needed to use some type of stylus or it just was not accurate enough for a finger to use
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Touch screens have been integrated into monitors, which are standing vertically, meaning that, in order to interact with them, the fingers and hands must cover the content of the monitor to actually use them. Also,
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Nobody wants to lift their arms up all day to work on a single display. This phenomena is what is called the ‘gorilla arm’, where it would cause strain in the arms and shoulders of the users if it went for too long.
The iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as a series of fantastic touch-based phones (mostly made by HTC) are doing fantastically well. But this is due to the fact that they are smaller than a 4” screen, and are designed to be used with the thumbs. It’s natural, intuitive, and our hands don’t usually get in the way.
Try that with a proper monitor, though, and it just doesn’t work.
Hence, my idea to bring touch completely into the desktop world is deliciously simple. Basically, we throw out our mouse and keyboard, and replace that with the same sized monitor laying flat on the desk. It should have the same size and resolution of the main monitor, and have capacitive touch technology to it.
This picture gives us a quick idea of how it would be, except that, in my idea, both monitors will show exactly the same content. The hands would be rested at the bottom, with indicators for where the fingers are located at the top. The mouse cursor would be gone entirely, with everything touching directly to the bottom monitor.
Essentially, here we have destroyed the need for the mouse. The scroll wheel can be controlled by gestures, and both right-click and left-click are handled by default in Windows 7 (regular tap to click, then either click and hold, or put two fingers down to right-click).
Now, the main problem is the keyboard. Most people would define a dual-screen computer or laptop with a regular-sized keyboard, such as this concept from Hewlett-Packard:
Just by looking at that, one can tell it’s not going to be fantastic to type on. Firstly, there’s no tactile response for the keys, and one can’t properly tell where their fingers are (because there’s no feeling, it’s just a flat plane, I’m sure mistyped words would be commonplace).
The iPhone here works because we can use our thumbs, see what buttons we’re about to press, and when we do press the buttons a large indicator shows up above the finger (where it would previously be blocked). This works, because it’s a smaller device. But if we make the device bigger, then it’s not quite as optimal.
So I’ve decided to change our concept of the keyboard somewhat. Microsoft had a decent idea back in their earlier touch-screen days called DialKeys:
I imagine my concept would be somewhat similar to that, without spreading it out as much. Make it less circular, more to the ergonomics of how we use our hand. Here is Windows 7’s default touch keyboard looks:
There are a couple of problems with the default. Firstly, it covers up too much screen content. Secondly, it’s too rigid and square.
My touch keyboard would be curved, more in-line with the DialKeys (but maybe a midpoint between the two), with everything being Glass (transparent), so that the top screen can still see content behind it, yet see what the fingers are touching.
Now, the positioning of the keyboard would be crucial. Should it go low, just above the taskbar (as are the DialKeys), or should the taskbar be moved elsewhere (to the top or sides?), and then how do we access it when we need it (I’m going to assume we throw the keyboard away when we don’t need it, and activate it when we do).
I still need to do some concepts, and will update this post with drawings and so on. I imagine there is a tab on the side of the page (as is with current Windows 7 touch interface) that is ‘dragged out’ and becomes the keyboard.
Then, finally my last concept is to have vibration creators just in the corner of the screen which are activated every time a key is pressed, to give the user tactile feedback every time they tap a key, as per most Android devices.
This post is far from finished. Hopefully if I’m able to purchase a touch-screen monitor, I’ll be able to figure out how to hack it up and turn it into a mouse/keyboard replacement.
