Touch Screens

ok, I have a laptop... I hate using a mouse. Anyone have experience using touch screens? Is it better than a mouse?

I'm considering getting this: http://www.touchscreens.com/mt15pc-usb.html

My company provides technical support services all over the US Canada and Mexico. One of the factors we deal wit are Touch Screens on POS terminals. I am familiar with many systems... what you want to know?

We have many machines (industrial machines) with touch screens where I work. They are convenient but ONLY if they aren't using the Windows interface (meaning that they're using their own custom interface).

The reason being, touchscreens aren't as accurate as a mouse pointer due to the physical size of your finger which makes dealing with most Windows windows a pain. This is unless you like everything on your screen blown up large so you don't keep 'clicking' on the wrong thing.

Also, 'dragging' with a touchscreen leaves much to be desired.

I prefer mice, unless like I said, the 'puter' has it's own custom interface that doesn't involve dragging and has nice big buttons to press.

It really depends on what you typically do with your computer.

Touch screens have a couple of major disadvantages:

1) They are much less accurate than a mouse, since there is a larger point of contact to 'confuse' the sensors
2) Ever touched your normal screen by accident? Fingers leave grease behind, and a touchscreen ends up looking very messy real quick
3) Ever seen one of those touch screen cash registers? It doesn't take long before frequently pressed areas get affected by it and start to scratch, turn less transparent, or even rub completely through. Nothing but a thin layer of plastic between the outside world and your display crystals, after all.
4) If you use them a lot, they'll be significantly less ergonomic than a input mechanisms -- you'll have to have your entire arm suspended in the air after all, putting much more strain on your shoulder muscles.

All in all touch screens are great for areas where a keyboard/mouse is impractical (e.g. in-car navigation systems, law enforcement in-car computers, factory floors, cash registers, vending machines, etc.) but they would make a poor interface for normal every day use on a laptop I think...

A big issue is that all these other settings use very specialistic custom software that is typically designed with touch screens in mind. You have a fairly limited number of possible actions you can take, which tend to be clustered behind fairly large on-screen buttons.

A general-purpose laptop used to run office applications is a very different setting indeed. not limited to big buttons = more accuracy issues, and you also tend to have a higher resolution... so more visual data, which will be more severely impacted by a greased-up display.

The real question, is why you hate the mouse -- is it the lack of a convenient surface when you put it on your lap? There are other alternatives, such as a built-in touchpad in your laptop, or even a 3D presentation mouse which is made to be used anywhere in 3D space. You can just hold it in your lap and control your cursor with it, for example. They have some build-in gyroscope thing that helps measure motions. E.g. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1128548,00.asp

if you dont like the mouse try a tablet.

http://loop.worldofapple.com/archives/2006/02/08/multi-touch-interaction-video/

If you don't like the mouse I strongly suggest learning how to use keyboard shortcuts.

There used to be a time when every operation available in Windows was accessible by using keyboard - no mouse was required. This is still somewhat true of Windows XP. Certainly, all standard supplied software is entirely usable without a mouse (possible exception of Paint!).

Some 3rd-party software (I have found) may not be entirely usable, but most follow the standard GUI and input guidelines.

I see hundreds of lost man-hours at my place of work from people alternating (not so) rapidly between mouse and keyboard during their everyday tasks. One of the reasons I'm star of the office is because I can do things 5X quicker than everyone else because I use as many keyboard shortcuts as possible (not so easy when you're using SAP).

some good advice all round. Basically touch screen stink unless they are using custom interfaces with FAT buttons e.g. POS. However, I too sold POS/StockControl for 9 years and out system utilised Keyboard shortcuts and was faster to use than a touch screen as a result, plus never greased up, broke etc. Keyboard shortcuts rock. When I used to interview developers for our company, amongst the zillion questions I asked was one about all these common Windows Shortcuts. You'd be amazed at how many programmers DON'T use them, I coudn't believe it. It really does enhance productivity. For example, to save this post I'll hit tab and enter rather than use the mouse.

Oh yeah get a mouse with a mouse wheel! I still see people clicking repeatly on the down arrows on the bottom on IE scrollbars!! At least they could use page down or End

Or selecting large blocks of cells in Excel by autoscrolling, inevitably overshooting where they needed to select to because their first mistake was starting from the top of the sheet.

*sigh*

If I ever start a company, I'm going to ban mice for everyone except me.

actually IBM has an IR interface on the 46XX series POS and they tell us they are going to use it again on their new POS series... No Cap film... The monitor has a ring or IR sensor chips around it in a ring... simple... easy to repair and fix. But yeah...

Instead of a touchscreen I would get a laser mouse

The mouse by itself isn't evil, it's just that the interface ppl make do stink a lot. Whenever I make a gadget in BMaxgui I make sure it's so versatile that it can combine multiple actions in one.
Don't think: "we have these and those gadgets, what can we make with them?"
Think: "What's the optimal way of working/operating? Let's create a gadget or working method for that"

In the Windows-world leftmouseclick is usually the main-click, while the rightmouseclick is usually the secundary click, used for advanced stuff, or not even used at all.
I'd simply support/use both buttons 100% for immediate tasks, saves so much work.. esp. with 2d-mapeditors.

Some weeks ago I made a spinner gadget, there're quite some functionality-configurations for it.. one of them being: LMB/wheel for spinning, and RMB for EVENT_GADGETACTION! And since you can also link a string-array to it acting as lookup, you can select an item from that list with the LMB or wheel, and activate/trigger/push it with the RMB. That's more efficient than having a seperate button which takes space and requires you to move to it.

There're many other optimzed ways of doing things, ppl just don't think enough about it.

But yes: hotkeys forever ^_^

:-)
At least one that understood that masses of tabs and buttons are a brainburnt way of designing interfaces.

Context sensitive behavior is the most intuitive and simplest way a app can and should work ... its so sad only a few even capable of it. Most still use overcrowded interfaces that are hard to learn and even harder to master.