Although I had heard of the Microsoft Surface as early as the spring of last year, the first time I had a chance to try one was in September of 2008. The experience changed my life. No really. You just can't appreciate a large multitouch surface until you try a good one. Microsoft Surface provides for an excellent experience.
Last month I purchased my own Surface unit so that I can develop applications for it and help others appreciate this new paradigm. Like the iPhone its addicting and totally different and thrilling compared to traditional human-computer interfaces. That said, the design of multitouch systems both large and small is very different from traditional web or GUI design. Everything, from the way in which you invoke actions to the style in which you design interfaces, is radically different. There is no past experience for users to draw on so you must make everything intuitive and discoverable. That's an exciting challenge for designers and developers a like. Before the Surface I was, and still am, into the iPhone for much the same reasons. Now I have both devices and I've learned that they are at once very different and much the same. There are some aspects of multitouch design that are unique to the Surface but many others which are shared by Surface and iPhone. In the future Apple, Microsoft, HP, and others will bring multitouch to the masses. While multitouch is not well suited as the only interface for the desktop, its has enormous potential in hand helds (obviously), large collaborative surfaces, and tablets. In fact, the Tablet form factor for computers is likely to see greater adoption because of multitouch support. In 18 months tablet computers with multitoch, used as netbooks, will be all the rage. There is little or no design guidance on multitouch computing. Some vendors such as Apple and Microsoft have published best practices but other resources are scattered through out the internet in the form of blog posts, articles, and research papers. This year I'm working on a multitouch design book for a major publisher which will hopefully pull all that information together and provide a set of best design practices for multitouch devices. I hope people will join me in identifying best practices and documenting them in the form of a book. All the best, Richard Monson-Haefel http://www.monson-haefel.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36947 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
