A recent article by Alex Williams was posted yesterday on TechCrunch about different expert perspectives on the future of interfaces. Now, I wish I’d read this earlier today so I could do it justice, but I need to squeeze in my NaBloPoMo blog post for today, so this will have to do. It’s a very short article, so you might be interested in giving it a read. I, myself, was most attracted to the article’s photo.

From TechCrunch’s article

The subject of the photo is leaning on a touchscreen device with one hand and drawing with the other. That’s quite clear. The screen must function by only registering input from particular tools, such as the pen they’re holding.

When I first saw it, I jumped to the conclusion that it was a photo of a device programmed to ignore that leaning hand. I was overjoyed, wondering if this was in the near future. Why? Because one of the things that really bugs me with touchscreens is that they register just about any touch. This can be problematic.

For a start, if you want to write or draw on a touchscreen, you need to hover your hand above the screen. This isn’t natural, as people tend to rest the base of their palms on the surface they’re writing on for stability. Some note-taking apps allow you to pull out a palm rest area, but these don’t entirely work, at least not for me. When I write, my hand rests on it’s side at a ~45º angle. The surface is in contact with my hand from the lateral edge of my palm right up along the side to the distal interphalangeal joint of my pinky finger. The rest areas that I’ve encountered pull up, so the apps can ignore contact at the bottom of the screen, but they can’t ignore contact at the side of where I’m writing as well. So if I find it uncomfortable and unnatural to write on a touchscreen, is it right to encourage children to practice on a screen?

In my final placement, we told children to hold down a page with their supporting hand to make sure it stays still. Again, you can’t do this unless you make sure you don’t touch the screen in any way while you write or draw.

These issues will become more important with larger, more immersive screens. People will want a place to rest their hand and steady themselves as they’re writing on a large touchscreen surface. I’m asking developers to think of ways to programme their devices so that they ignore certain types of input, like handprint-shaped input while other input is being received. That, to me, will be a big step forward.