Before you toss out the baby with the bathwater, recall Bill Buxton's
maxim: When it comes to technology, everything is best for something
and worse for something else.
Touchscreens (and other gestural interfaces) are great for:
- more natural interactions
- having less cumbersome or visible hardware
- more flexibility on the fly (no hard buttons to hinder changing the
entire interface)
- more nuance w/r/t the human body
- more fun
Gestural interfaces aren't so great for:
- heavy data input
- situations requiring haptic feedback
- those with motor skills impairment
- certain contexts of use
If we consider the iPhone with this lens, well, we can all acknowledge
it isn't the greatest for heavy data input like composing emails or
heavy texting. Nor does it provide haptic feedback. If you compose a
lot of mail or text heavily, then, yes, the iPhone may not be for you.
However, its natural interactions and its ability to change its entire
form from an iPod to a phone to a gaming console to web browser on the
fly is a pretty major bonus and one that Blackberry is unlikely to be
able to replicate, as a large percentage of their device is taken up
with a hard keyboard.
Dan
Dan Saffer
Principal, Kicker Studio
http://www.kickerstudio.com
http://www.designinggesturalinterfaces.com
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