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Touch screens will bring millions of new online customers

You know how you start thinking about something and then it drives you to some really unexpected ideas. That’s what happened to me recently. I was thinking about illustrations for children’s books. My daughter is going through couple new ones each week. She is a year and a half old, but she loves pointing her finger towards different objects and asking me and my wife to name things.

I thought that kids now are switching from books to computers so soon that who knows when my daughter will start using a computer. And it got me thinking – what stops her using one right now? Well the answer is pretty easy – nowadays computers lack good pointing devices that young and old human beings are comfortable with. One of the main reasons old folks don’t use computers is a problem using a mouse with hands that are not as stable as they used to be.

Try clicking on some button when your hands are shaking and you have to remember to click left button not right. Pretty confusing for babies too.

If we can have touch screens available at low prices I’m sure a lot of new users will be added to army of online shoppers in the world. And I’m talking millions and millions of old people who have more money than typical online shopper now. They want to save and get a nice deal, they don’t want to get out of the house, and they have plenty of time in their hands. Those are perfect online customers. And according to demographics their number is going to grow and grow in US.

Adding them can make a revolution in the way goods are distributed in the country. Producing simple to use interfaces with big buttons and touch screens is going to be the biggest trend in design, as boomers generation gets older.

And think about opportunities for kids to learn. It’s not just a video – it’s interactive stuff. Instead of just telling Dora where to go your child can point to the object and get individual response. Would you spend $20 for Dora DVD, or you would send your child to a website where she can play and learn?

Those markets are huge and it’s time for hardware and software developers open their eyes and use this opportunity.
Using your finger is natural for people. They start doing that before they can walk and keep doing it long after they can walk when they are old. I don’t see my self not using a computer when I’m old but I’m not sure if I will be able to hold my mouse tight in my hand 80 years everyday for 10 hours a day :)

Jun 25, 01:26 AM |

  1. Great, thought provoking article! I completely agree. One of my favorite examples of this is the efficiency shown by Tom Cruise in The Minority Report. Sure, it was fiction, but having touch screens in front of him like that made him able to work much, much faster. Coupled with voice recognition that actually works well, I could easily be 10x more efficient with a good touch-screen rig. My biggest pet peeve right now is having to take my hands off the keyboard to navigate anywhere (but stickykeys and other accessibility options on the keyboard are just as annoying to me). If I could just point at the monitor, and/or say “Open Email”, I’d rarely have to leave my keyboard except for tasks like drawing in Photoshop (and with the right stylus tool, I could completely eradicate a mouse altogether).

    — Stephen N. McDonald    Jun 28, 01:17 PM   
  2. I agree with the concept of as easy as pointing. But often a web page is filled with too much text and images without visual heirarchy. Hence, it makes people do a lot of thinking before able to decide on first what to look at. Perhaps touch screen works best at Kiosks. If it’s a touch screen monitor as your desktop, test an ordinary web experience by completing a task (e.g. browse and buy a book at amazon), it could be a solid 30 minutes arm and fingers exercise :)

    — okeea    Jun 29, 01:00 AM   
  3. I agree that touchscreens could be hard to use with some kinds of tasks. But there is no need to replace other devices completely. If you need to be very accurate you can use something else. And keyboard is staying too. A lot of designers work with Wacom’s tablet without using mouse at all. But my point was that there is a big segment of people for whom the best pointing device is their finger. And with CSS it should be easy to design sites that would recognize touchscreens and display design optimized for “touching”. Even a very very old man could point on a product he needs on Amazon and touch big red button – buy. Which will use his settings supposedly made by his son before for payment options and shipping information.
    — PictureSell    Jun 29, 08:21 PM   
  4. I agree with pointing is the easiest way (because I’m a designer who can’t operate Wacom!) What I’m proposing is a simple and minimal interface that supports the touch screen. Just like Kiosk at Kodak. Select picture, make it brighter if you like, print! I think kids are more willing to try and experiment, if compared to older people. I wish my parents will try the computer like how they accepted telephone ;P I also like the comment from stephen regarding – If I could just point at the monitor, and/or say “Open Email” – may be the technology could be saying it instead.
    — okeea    Jun 29, 10:49 PM   
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