Tactile Design

Soundtrack: “Cyclical Code” by Bexarametric

Touch screen technology has been around for quite some time now and it has had it’s ups and downs. Even these days touch screen monitors are finicky, fickle creatures. They have dubious sensitivity and they only offer single-point input, so the user ends up angrily poking the screen for fifteen minutes. Nice.

But Microsoft is developing a computer system that uses a new multi-point touch screen that is quite frankly amazing. This touch screen technology was first built by Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixel in order to create advanced touch screen solutions for the government as well as private sector companies who could benefit by using multi-point touchscreen technologies. Interestingly enough, these types of interfaces have been around since the 1980s. However, they tend to take a lot of processing power, much more than what was available previously. With dual core and even quad core processors making it possible to do an insane amount of calculations per second, now is the perfect time to harness this technology and make it shine.

I have to admit my mouth is watering. As a graphic designer who specializes in print design, I can see many things that this technology can add to the industry. I would much rather work on a table-top surface instead of a computer screen and keyboard. Not only that, but tablet technology right now is still limited by still being a single-point input device. No stylus, no tablet functionality. But with this technology available, I can only imagine what is possible. Think of taking a stylus shaped like a calligraphy pen and creating digital art that was not previously possible. Or using your fingers to arrange the elements of a composition, or to paint. The possibilities are staggering!