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About This Blog
At Operand, we design and develop interactive experiences for a living but we are also users of them. Throughout our daily lives we search for and use every digital experience we can find that we consider “interactive”. Our work and blog are founded on our somewhat unique view of what interactivity means. In brief, we think it's bigger and more expansive than most other people seem to. We have define six levels of interactivity and blog about digital interactive experiences within art, architecture, advertising, exhibits, and elsewhere that we feel succeed at elevating interactivity.
Previous Posts
- Intel Retail Digital Signage Concept
- Miele Inspirience Center
- MicroTiles Video Walls
- Medtronic HRS Conference Tables & Wall
- Multitouch Spheres
- iPhone Costumes
- Camille Utterback Interview
- 10/GUI Computing Paradigms
- Exploring the Sixth Sense
- Coffee Table as Universal Remote Control
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Sites We Like
- we make money not art
- interactive architecture
- your story alive
- NOTCOT
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- ars technica
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- toad stool
- machine thinking
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- museum 2.0
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Windows 7 Multi-Touch
As some of you have heard, Microsoft’s new operating system scheduled to replace Vista is called Windows 7 and it offers multi-touch capabilities built into the OS. This is very exciting news to interactive agencies like Operand who have been working in the single touch world for years using 3rd party solutions built on top of Windows. The demonstration video below shows a user interacting with a laptop size screen using their finger to navigate the OS and browser.
Though we are excited that soon touch will no longer be an estranged cousin to the mouse, it seems unnatural to use your finger to control off the shelf Window applications that were originally designed for a mouse pointer. At first pass here are some concerns that jump out at me:
1) The screen size (appropriately 17 inches) to really too small for most multi-touch applications and limits the experience to a single user. The hardware for larger displays will surely follow but currently everyone is using Window’s 7 on small laptop size displays.
2) Applications designed for fingers are very different than those designed for a mouse. Visual navigation elements need to be designed to accommodate larger interaction surface areas, requiring larger screen real estate. When creating a touch zone within an application appropriate visual and audio feedback is necessary to communicate with the user, similar to the sounds and onscreen queues you receive when using a mouse. It’s important not to leave the user wondering if they correctly touched what they are where attempting to touch. Maybe this is built into Windows 7 or at least their code accommodates things like depressed states for buttons.
3) Hardware providers such as Next Window and N-Trig are working hard to produce multi-touch displays that will be integrated into the Dell and HP units referenced here. During our conversations with these providers they have made it clear that screens larger than 17 inch are not a priority. So my question is…When will we be able to buy a Windows 7 enable multi-touch display that is a large format LCD ? e.g. 32, 40, 60 and even 80 inch which are popular sizes available today without touch or as single touch. When this happens things will get really interesting.
posted by eric at 12:52 AM