Communications of the ACM
To Win Over Users, Gadgets Have to Be Touchable
Whoever said technology was dehumanizing was wrong. On screens everywhere—cellphones, e-readers, A.T.M.’s—as Diana Ross sang, we just want to reach out and touch.
Scientists and academics who study how we interact with technology say people often try to import those behaviors into their lives, as anyone who has ever wished they could lower the volume on a loud conversation or Google their brain for an answer knows well. But they say touching screens has seeped into people’s day-to-day existence more quickly and completely than other technological behaviors because it is so natural, intimate and intuitive.
And so device makers in a post-iPhone world are focused on fingertips, with touch at the core of the newest wave of computer design, known as natural user interface. Unlike past interfaces centered on the keyboard and mouse, natural user interface uses ingrained human movements that do not have to be learned.
From The New York Times
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