Touch screen devices are becoming ever more popular as the technology proves itself reliable and smart. With a large number of mobile devices, including phones and tablet PCs, using touch screens almost exclusively, the modern computer or technology user is now as familiar with touching a screen to control information, as he is with using a keyboard.
The touch screen is capable of sensing the location and pressure of a hand, finger or designated object – normally a plastic stylus or a pointer.
The major advantage of touch
screens is that the user
is able to interact directly with the display on the screen. Where an image is
displayed, this means the user may interact with it in a much more intelligent
and intuitive way than if he or she was forced to use a mouse or keyboard to
control a cursor.
For example, when a map is
displayed on a touch screen, the user may point to an area on the grid, which
then enlarges. Or, using the motion of two fingers (normally the finger and the
thumb) – first pinched together and then spread apart – the user can enlarge a
specific area of a map, rotate it: in fact control it as though he or she was
actually holding the topography in his or her hand.
The medical industry has
embraced touch screens for this reason. Medical equipment with touch screen
monitors allows the technician or consultant to point out and interact with
specific areas in the display.
The history of the touch screen
is a long one, surprisingly so perhaps for the lay reader: as early as 1965, a
paper appeared positing the theoretical potentials of using capacitance to
create an electronic screen that would allow direct interaction with the human
finger or hand. In the first instance of commercially available touch screens,
exceedingly high end musical sampling and editing equipment began to use light
pen technology to allow the musician in question to control and create samples.
In the early 80s, HP released what is generally believed to be the world’s
first touch screen computer; at around the same time as General Motors
commissioned a study to see if the satellite functions in their vehicles (so
anything not directly related to starting and stopping the engine, shifting
gears, steering or using the brakes) could be controlled using touch screens.
The modern touch screen may be
constructed in a number of different ways – the actual method of construction
being ultimately defined by the size of the device, its anticipated cost and of
course the requirement it has for a specific type of user experience. The more
sensitive and controllable the screen needs to be, the more intensive the
creation process and the more expensive the final product.
In general terms touch screens
allow the user to use a fingernail as a stylus; and to tap with finger pads in
the same way you do when using a keyboard. To a degree the extent to which the
data on screen is controllable is a function of the size of the screen.
In general terms touch screens
allow the user to use a fingernail as a stylus; and to tap with finger pads in
the same way you do when using a keyboard.
