I recently drove a car whose whole control and entertainment system was a gigantic iPad-like thing mounted to the dash. It caused me to have a realisation about the #Ui and #UX of touch screens.
There is no way to touch a touchscreen without it treating that touch as intentional. What I mean is: without taking my eyes off the road, I can grope across the dashboard, find a knob or button—by touching it—without activating any function. Touching the volume button or temperature knob doesn’t DO anything until I do it with more force and intentionality. Not so for a #touchscreen.
My mobile #phone (an #iPhone 13) has no dead space in its face. There’s no part of the phone face I can touch without it assuming I meant to do that and I wanted to activate whatever was under my finger. Old iPhones that had physical home buttons also had dead space to either side: a safe space to hold the phone without DOING anything.
Computer keyboard have little raised pips on the F and J keys so you can find them by touch without looking. I do this all the time. But I don’t type the letters F or J. Touch screens have no such affordances.
I look at the #blackberry keyboard in this photo and I see a raised space bar. It’s an #affordance that lets you orient your fingers, and orient how you hold the phone, without looking.
I miss buttons.
mobilesyrup.com/2025/02/15/bla…
BlackBerry's iconic keyboard patent has expired
Let's all close our eyes and go back to 2009 so we can feel the thrill of typing our first email on the go.Brad Bennett (MobileSyrup)
Winter blue tardis
in reply to Gabor SZOLLOSI • • •