[CeBIT] Standard Setting for Touch Screens

From public displays to cellphones and everything in between, touchscreens are in at CeBIT this year. On hand was what might be the first to market consumer touch cellphone, the LG KE-850 Prada. Alone with the phone for a precious few minutes, I took the opportunity to test its text messaging implementation. Given touchscreen technology and the ability to do anything you wanted on it from a software perspective, how would implement text messaging on a high-end consumer phone?

LG has bravely decided to emulate the standard numeric pad. Ouch (fashionistas don't worry, it still looks good).

A standard outliving its usefulness? Yes. The interface for text messaging we see today is a poor compromise between design and the limitations of a numeric keypad. Just to make our clunky method of inputting text work we are forced to implement ingenious but unfortunately unintuitive hacks like T9. Without the hardware limitation of a keypad why design cellphone software like we need a crutch keypad? Touch screens allow for complete context aware input. In the context of creating a text message, a numeric keypad does not make sense. So why provide one? If it sticks, the move to touchscreens on mobiles will force a re-evaluation of every standard on mobile phones. Things will have to be shaken up. New standards, created by the unique opportunities and limitations that touch-screens provide are already being created in the first wave of touch based devices.

Vista's tablet support is trying to introduce new touch screen standards based on real world motions. Testing out Vista on a tablet laptop for the first time I initially found writing words difficult. Frustrated, I scribbled them out with the stylus unconsciously. To my pleasant surprise the words and the scribbles disappeared. That's context aware input. Microsoft would like to term these actions are flicks but they are better understood as gestures or context aware motions . Not be be outdone, Apple's iPhone contains support for a number of multi-touch gestures. Steve Jobs specifically demoed two in his iPhone introduction showing gestures to zoom into and away from images by pinching or spreading fingers across the iPhone's screen. Even Apple's laptops have included support for gestures on their trac pad for some time. Moving two fingers along the pad is interrupted as a scrolling action.

Standards exist to minimize the learning curve across different situations. If actions like writing with a pen or erasing can be emulated on a touch-screen why not implement them? What better standards exist than those we find every day in the real world? Implementing touch screen gestures based on real world actions will ensure a smooth transition to from numeric pads to touch screens.

-jb