jad@beta.UUCP (John De Vries) (11/24/87)
In article <1014@zodiac.UUCP> klee@klee.UUCP (Ken Lee) writes: >In article <19@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> rolandi@gollum.UUCP () writes: >>Meanwhile, can anyone give me some pointers to research that examines >>the relative merits of touchscreens versus "mice". > >As for your question, I think the consensus is that "it depends" on the >application. Touchscreens are generally unsuitable for intensive applications >because: [the following is somewhat colored by the applications we have developed in the CEDAR team here at Los Alamos] >1. excessive fatigue (holding your arm up all day) Seems more intermittent than "all day" to me. I will admit, however, that a mouse takes substantially less effort for "pointing" exercises. In fact, I find that a trackball takes even less effort than a mouse. However, back to the charter of this newsgroup, we have observed that people find the action of pointing is extremely natural. >2. your finger hides the thing you're pointing at When just "pushing" relatively low-resolution buttons, this isn't much of a problem. However, one of our applications involved designating a route on a map. We found that a touchscreen was just didn't give the resolution required. So it depends, once again, on what you are "pointing at". >4. fingerprints We are using infra-red style touchscreens (the Carroll touch panel). Fingerprints smudge the screen, but don't screw up the touchscreen as one's finger is actually breaking beams of light. >5. touch screens cause glare, distortion, and reduce display brightness We don't know, because we aren't using that kind. Cf. 4. >6. a mouse has more degrees of freedom (especially a multi-button mouse) Assuming: a) your software knows about the other buttons, b) your USERS know about the difference between the buttons. I've seen people who were used to Macintoshes lost with multi-button mice, but the learning-curve doesn't seem all that steep IF THE USE OF THE BUTTONS IS CONSISTENT. >Ken Lee >klee@ads.arpa John A. deVries II jad@lanl.gov.ARPA ...ihnp4!lanl!gov ...cmcl2!lanl!gov -- Zoz "I ALWAYS read the CONDENSED version of the _Reader's Digest_."