HCI-human computer interaction (what impact has touch screen technology had on software development?

Order Type: Dissertation

Level: Degree / Bachelor’s

Subject: computing

Standard Langauge:

English (UK) Pages: 3

Instructions:

Have one page of summary and two pages of evaluation

INTRODUCTION

This project will look at Touch Screen Technology and produce a report describing the literature related to the Touch Screen Technology, the history behind it, Technical aspect of the Touch screen Technology and the application of Touch Screen Technology.Touch screen is an electronic display which is visual and the person can control through multi touch or simple gestures by the touching the screen with fingers. The customers can use the touch screen to respond to whatever is shown on the screen and how it shall be controlled. For example: Zooming the size of the text. This technology helps the customers to interact directly with whatever is displayed on the screen by either attaching a mouse or any other instrument. Touch screen play a major role in video games, mobile phone and navigation satellite devices (The Hindu, 2003).

Research Aims and Objectives

This research is to answer the Academic question on “What impact has touch screen technology had on software development?

Aims

To investigate some of the devices and applications used in Touch Screen Technology
To find out what impact Touch Screen Technology has on the 21st century

Objectives

To look at the history behind Touch Screen Technology
To research on types of Touch Screen Technology
To review the literature related to the Touch Screen Technology
To investigate the effect of touch screens on software.
To look at possible future of Touch Screens.

History

The Touch screen technology is a technology in which an electronic visual display screen is used by users by using single or multi-touch on screen with the help of fingers (Hoye, 2010). There are some objects too which can be used for controlling and playing the functions on the screen by touching with them such as stylus, special gloves with a coating on it, etc. This technology provides a direct interface between the user and the system or machine to control and react to what is displayed on the screen. This interface reduces the use of various intermediate devices such as mouse, keyboard, touchpad, etc. Nowadays touch screen has become common in many devices such as computers, tablets, smart phones, gaming consoles, etc. This technology was first introduced in early 1965. The idea of this technology begins with touch sensitive music instruments. There were synthesizers used in the music industry which can recognize the user’s touch which was based on capacitance technology. The first touch screen computer was introduced in 1972 named PLATO IV. This computer was a single touch system and also required great pressure to operate. There were no multi-touch capabilities in these touch screen computers. Then a new technology was invented named One-Point Touch Input of vector information which used a large factor of multi-touch technology which is currently used in touch-screen computers (Anonymous, 2011).

Human Computer Interaction (HCI):

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) refers to an interface which involves planning, designing and study the communication between users and the electronic device. It is also known as an intersection of behavioral sciences, computer design and other field of study. HCI studies about human and machine in combination and draws a supporting knowledge on both machine as well as human side. Human computer interaction (HCI) is also known as a Computer Human interaction (CHI) or Man Machine Interaction (MMI).

Author Ben Shneiderman has done an in depth research on the topic Human Computer Interaction (HCI). He has edited numerous books, articles in the direction of HCI. (Sheiderman B., 1993)

Requirements of touch screens:

The technology of touch screen always works on electronic displays and screens. A finger or a light pen also known as a Stylus is used in touch screen. In this ways, the person can directly interact with what is on the screen and no other devices are necessary to work with the system. These are frequently attached to the Global Positioning System (GPS) systems, computers, video games, and mobile phones. They must be developed in a way that it should be very easy to operate. Since there will be a number of users who will not be from technical background the product must be easy to use and self-explanatory.

Performance of touch screens:

The product must deliver a very high output and quick response time avoiding a long processing times. The icons can now be used with much ease which increases the speed at which the person will be able to manipulate the applications of the system. The time taken by this system is less as compared to the other applications. The time taken by the brain of the touch screen processor to read the entire document is less as compared to the traditional applications. Speed is increased as the person does not need to type the response.It also improves the accessibility. They can be more easily accessible for those with poor eyesight as we know items sometimes can be easier to distinguish. (Tomas L., 2013)

Technical aspect

Hardware Specification

According to Husain (2010) we can use various technologies in order to convert the pressure or touch applied at a point into some useful information or numerical coordinates. Most of the technologies used are resistive, capacitive, infra-red etc. In the project I have used the resistive touch screen whose working is explained as follows. Most of the systems use resistive touch screens because they have some advantages over the other technologies. First, they are relatively inexpensive and second they are very easy to implement in a system.

Resistive touch screens make use of the resistive voltage dividers in which two resistive sheets are used which may be separated by some kind of insulator for example plastic micro dots which are very thin insulators. Upon implementation, when the screen is touched at the point the two resistive sheets are deformed enough so that they make an electrical contact between them. When the sheets are shorted together, the software which we use can figure out where the contact has taken place, in other words where the touch has been made by analysing the voltage produced when the contact between the sheets takes place. The resistive touch screens used are of different types such as four, five or eight wires. If system with more wires is used improve the accuracy of system and also minimize the variations in temperature. The four wire design consists of two layers which are x and y layer. X- Layer is made active in one step while the y layer acts as the pickup of voltage according to the location of x axis. In next step, the functions of both the x and y axes are reversed when voltage is produced by contact between the two sheets of resistors, then this voltage must be converted into analogy form so that required information may be produced. To do this, an ADC is used which is a 12 bit analogy to digital converter. These converters have built in logic to convert the touch screen input into the required data. The ADCs of this type are Burr Brown NS7843 and NS7846.

Nowadays, most of the CPUs include the ADCs and circuitry to implement the touch screens. The CPUs which support the touch screen system mostly use the ARM processors. The hardware is first configured by the touch drivers by which the memory mapped registers are written into so that controllers can be configured to a known state. After the hardware is configured, it has to be determined if the screen has been touched or not. If the screen has been touched, then the coordinates corresponding to that are formed which should be stable. After that the touch screen is rectified.

HOW DOES IT WORK

Construction

A touch screen can be developed on the basis of several principles and approaches. The most popular approach used in modern techniques is capacitive or resistive approach which has some layers i.e.

The glass layer is coated with polyester on top and the bottom is coated with transparent conductive metal.
An adhesive spacer
Adhesive layer is used for mounting

When a user touches the screen then the change in the flow of electrical current through the display is recorded and this effect is known as piezoelectric effect. This effect is measured by dispersive-signal technology. Basically, this piezoelectric effect is the voltage is generated when a mechanical force is applied while touching the surface of screen and this process occurs chemically.

There are two main infrared based techniques to detect the touch on the surface

First is in which there is an array of sensors which helps in detecting a finger touch. In this movements are recognized when the light beams are interrupted projected over the screen.
Second is infrared cameras which are bottom mounted which record the touch on the screen.(Rumela,2012)
Working Of A Touch Screen
The three main components used in touch screen technology are the touch sensor, the controller and a driver for software. Since a touch screen is an input device, it needs to be attached with some PC or other display device to form a complete functioning system.
Touch screen sensor: A touch screen sensor is made up of glass which is responsive to the touch input. It is basically placed over a display screen so that the area that can be viewed over the display screen overlaps with it. The touch sensor makes use of a current signal to detect where the touch has been made. It analyses the voltage produced when touch is made and uses the voltage to determine where the touch has been made. Various technologies are available nowadays to implement the touch screen sensors.
Controller: The controller is placed between the touch screen input and the PC so that they can communicate with each other. The controller usually performs the function of translating the information from touch screen input into a form understandable by the PC. IT may be integrated with the monitor itself or may be present as an external device.
Driver for software: software driver is needed to make the touch screen input and the PC interact with each other. It helps the operating system of the PC to analyse the information when a touch is made. These days, the technology which is similar to clicking with mouse on screen is implemented for touch screens. In this way the touch screen system can directly be integrated with the software present in the PC.

APPLICATION OF TOUCH SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

According to Vogel (1999) there are a number of areas where touch screen finds its way through. Some of them are explained below:

User at an entirely new place can receive benefits from touch screen systems.

Self-service for customers: In this fast paced world, it is difficult for the customers to wait up in long queues to get their work done. In order to reduce the time, touch screen systems are used so that the customer can become self-dependent to place order or to collect the desired item. Touch screens are used in automated teller machines widely which greatly reduces the time which will be otherwise consumed.

Fig 1:self-service till (http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://codinghorror.typepad.com)

In retail stores and restaurants: Touch screen systems are beneficial to the employees in large stores and restaurants as data can be input easily with the help of touch screens. Also for new employees the training time decreases considerably. This saves a lot of time and also lesser equipment is required for touch screen systems as compared to other systems.
Displays for public information: Information regarding various things can be displayed with the help of touch screen systems. For people having lesser knowledge about computers can operate upon touch screens by simply readingthe instructions.
Automation system in industries and at home: Various gadgets used in large industries and even at home make wide use of touch screen systems. For example in homes, microwaves, washing machines etc. are equipped with touch screen equipment. This greatly reduces the time and space. Various complex operations in industries can be handled by simply touching the screens which is quite easy.
In technology that is assistive: For persons who cannot make use of computers for long or otherwise have problem in operating upon a computer, touch screens can prove to be of great help to them. Over keyboard and mouse, touch screens are comparatively easier to use.
Railways: The railway stations now – days have Touch screen reservation kiosks so as to give the passengers some easy real time access to the information about reservation. They can get the status regarding their availability of the seats, etc. By giving quick access to such information will lead to a decrease in the number of passengers waiting on the counters (Julie, Jacko& Sears, 2003).

Fig 2: Ticket Machine ( photo taken on 11/04/2013)

Cash Machines: It is a computerized device which helps the people to perform money related or information regarding financial transactions without need of a human clerk.

Fig 3: Cash machine (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cash+machine&id=72BFB753D21B17868E37C30BD4E4295EB0461B0C&FORM=IQFRBA#view=detail&id=C96C311FCDC3BBB0FD4DC6CE7CE97F4C3087DB4F&selectedIndex=19)

ADVANTAGES OFFERED BY TOUCH SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Easy to use: Even with people having no background of computer, touch screens provide an easy interface for use. It makes a person self-dependent to carry out any operation such as placing orders, gathering information etc. It also makes employees easy to train them because touch screens should be easy to use and operate upon. It reduces the complexity of work because touch screens can reduce the work considerably and also the time.
Size of device: There is a considerable decrease in the size of device when touch screen is used. Especially in the case of smart phones, PC tablets we can see that the size of equipment has reduced considerably as keyboard have been eliminated completely. This reduces the cost as well as the space required for the equipment.
Speed of the system: For a traditional input method using a mouse or keyboard, the user always needs time to locate the cursor on screen and to set the equipment. Whereas for touch screens, the user does not have to think about these and can operate upon it without any thought. It has been observed that the user response time decreases by about 20% for touch screen systems as compared to other systems.
Providing assistive technology: For people with physical problems, who cannot operate upon mouse and keyboards, touch screens have proved to be a boon for them. As touch screens are a lot easier to use, physically challenged persons can derive great benefits from them.

Looking up for these advantages provided by the touch screen systems, these are finding wide use in electronic gadgets used these days saving time and money (Sheiderman B., 2012)

DISADVANTAGES OF TOUCH SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

The foremost disadvantage of touch screen technology is that after continuous use of touch screen, scratches can appear on the touch screens. Gradually, the screen gets blurred or may even break if the gadget is dropped or something like that happens. So, even if one spends money on touch screens for their various features, after some time they do not offer the same quality service. So, touch screens need to be handled in a very delicate manner and rough usage may spoil it.
While using touch screens new user may find it difficult to put finger on the desired icon because while selecting the desired icon, the finger may select some other icon which may lead to opening of some other application. So, it becomes tedious to open and close random windows. So, people prefer to use stylus as compared to touch screens where complex operations are to be performed. The advantage of fast processing of touch screens is overshadowed by this fact of opening random windows while operating on something else.
Touch screens are very sensitive when it comes to usage. Touch screens based upon short acoustic wave technology are very prone to short circuits if it comes in contact with any kind of liquid. When any liquid falls on the surface of touch screen, it may seep into the interior of the gadget which may lead to short circuits in the touch screen and it may get damaged on permanent basis. So, great precautions should be used while using touch screens.
The battery life of touch screen gadgets is low as compared to gadgets which have keyboards or stylus. Battery life is quite necessary these days as the gadget may have to be carried to other places where quick charging of the battery may not be available.
Proper care and maintenance of touch screens is quite essential if one wants to use it for a long time. A minor fault in the gadget may lead to complete malfunction of touch screen. The maintenance cost of touch screen is high as compared to gadgets without touch screens. So, people prefer to use gadgets without touch screen as cost may go very high including the maintenance charges.

Although touch screens have so many disadvantages, they are being used widely in latest electronic gadgets because some features make touch screens worth implementing them in new gadgets as they save a lot of time and space. ((Sheiderman B., 2012)

Impact of touch screens:

Apple: Apple is a leading company in the field of electronic devices for consumers. It is known because of its innovative designs and products. Apple brought revolution in the field of technology and changed the face of telecommunication and touch screen technology by introducing a touch screen iphone in the market in 2007. This device was a revolution because it consists of three main factors such as a cell phone, iPod and an internet communication device. The company also launched a next generation of iPod named as iTouch which is very similar to iPhone but doesn’t have the cell phone capabilities. The touch screen technology used by Apple was based on projected capacitive approach. This technology takes the company to a leading position and has a great impact in the market when Apple introduced iPad in the market for the customers. This was introduced to browse web, play games, send or receive emails, read e-books, etc. Apple makes the life of consumers easy with this technology.

Other Mobile Phone Companies: After the launching of Apple iPhones, a revolution came to the mobile phone industry. Many other companies also start developing cell phones with touch screen technology so as to keep pace with the new technology in the market. So, companies like Nokia, Samsung, started launching their touch screen phones in the market with new advanced features in them. This technology has a great impact on the social life of the people as well.

Desktops and Laptops: Earlier, desktops and laptops were used by the users with the help of mouse and keyboards but the new touch screen technology has its impact on these devices too. Apple launches its first touch screen desktop which is just a wide screen not having any intermediate device such as mouse and keyboard to operate between interface and the user. It provides a direct interface between both the user and the system. Similarly, companies launched touch screen laptops such as HP a leading laptop company. It introduced its first touch screen laptop tablet which can be used anywhere and anytime without any keyboard or mouse.

Automobile Navigation System: Nowadays, a GPS which a navigation system has become a most important feature in a person’s life to move from one to another unknown place. It guides a person by giving him directions to travel. This feature is often used in mobile phones with the help of touch screen mechanism. More recently various automobile companies have introduced this system in the highly automated cars to provide assistance to the consumers with this touch screen navigation system. This is a very good impact of the touch screen technology on the mankind.

There has been drastic impact of touch screens on everyone. For example: Suppose you wake up, stretching your hands and breathing the fresh air. All of a sudden the bedside window gets opened. At first, you forget that you live in era of technology; you forget that the touch sensitive devices are surrounded by you and ready to serve on your commanding gesture. Then by clapping your hands, morning coffee is ready you stand in front of your computer desk; the computer switched on itself. The sensors of the computer know that you are there and make ready to use the computer. This is not just an attraction but a feasible imagination as touch screen technology improves and develops the future.

Touch screens technology is also practiced on politics. It is preferred by most of the people since it eliminates the wrong counting of the votes. This technology will help to result in minimum error while counting of the votes. (C., Plaisant& B. Shneiderman, 1992).

IMPACT

Every new technology or development has its impact on existing life. Similarly the touch screen technology has its impact. This technology has both good and bad impact on the social as well as technical life. Some of the factors which contribute towards good impact are: firstly, it makes people comfortable with using computers who were uncomfortable with desktops, etc. It provides a great assistance to them as it’s very easy to use and operate. Secondly, it consists of fewer buttons and provides a big screen to operate by just touching the screen gently. This technology provides a very user-friendly interface and is very easy to clean. Touch screen also provides fast speed of operating as it’s easy to touch rather than moving a mouse or typing from a keyboard. If a user is using a touch screen desktop then it needs less space as it has only a screen not any other device such as mouse, keyboard, to place on the table or desk.

However, there are some disadvantages. The main problem with this technology is that a user has to keep the screen closer to his or her eyes and in the range of his arms so as to touch the screen easily. The brightness of the screen may affect the eyes of the person due to less distance between the user and the system. As in case of desktops, a user can keep the monitor as far as he can watch it properly and can operate it easily with the help of mouse and keyboard. Another disadvantage is in case of touch screen mobile phones where icons are small and it is sometimes difficult to select the proper icon easily so use of stylus may be needed as it has a narrow end to select the desired icon. Touch screen mobiles are very delicate so they benefit from protective case. Another disadvantage is that it is very difficult to look at the screen in the sunlight as the screens are bigger in case of touch screens. The cost of touch screen devices is more than that of ordinary devices. When a user uses a touch screen mobile regularly then the screen may get scratched.

Future development:

As we move towards the future, people will tend to see the growth in touch screen industry or extensive changes within the same. It is much easier to use touch screen rather than searching for a specific key in a big sea of buttons. For such reasons, it has been found that touch screen technology is the future for many devices The latest developments in the touch screen technology are mainly based on one principle i.e. an interactive touch screen. Today, as stated above, masters in technology are encapsulating the devices with touch screen technology. Now the question is what will be the future of touch technology. After successful implementation of touch technology, there are various new technologies that are still to come some of which are explained below:

Pressure recognition: The technology proposed here is to detect the pressure of the finger and the movement can be adjusted accordingly. The technology will help in making it more easy to use the technology along with making it faster to get response for command given. For example, a high pressure while reading pages of books will make the pages to move in a fast forward form. So, by employing this technology, it will be possible to complete a task in lesser series of actions as that of now.
Hover detection: Hovering technology is also proposed so that usefulness can be increased. In this case, a touch while hovering over the screen will be detected and action can be taken accordingly. For an example; a link can be previewed while the user is hovering over it and a press down action will open the link for user in case user is interested to open it after its preview.

Waldecker (2012) states “The idea is that the screens could tell how close the finger was, and it would seem almost magical in the way it worked.”

Texture on screen: Advanced touch screens are proposed which are likely to have texture on it. Idea behind is to feel the objects on which action has been taken. For n instance; the user will be able to feel the folder’s thickness which moving from one location/ -device to another. Current prototypes released for this technology are very large and cumbersome.

Along with above listed technologies, the word of touch technology is ever improving and world is moving ahead and next generation touch technology is about to release. And it will be easy to judge which is good/ beneficial from upcoming developments. Next developments will be an interesting thing to observe.

REFERENCES

Anonymous,(2011). Touch Screen Computers [online] [Accessed 16 February, 2013] Available at:<http://www.touchscreencomputers.co.uk/history.html>
Husain L.,(2010) Side-effects of Touch Screen [online] [Accessed on 16 February, 2013] Available at: <http://www.imedicalapps.com/2010/06/side-affects-multi-touch-capacitive-iphone-ipad-screens/>
Hoye T., (2010) Touch Screen: A pressing technology [online] [Accessed 16 February, 2013] Available at: <http://136.142.82.187/eng12/history/2010/pdf/1118.pdf>
Kozak J. (2010) Touch Screens: A pressing Technology [online] [Accessed 02 March 2013] Available at:<http://136.142.82.187/eng12/history/2010/pdf/1118.pdf>
Rumela (2012), Touch Screen Mobile Phones [online] [Accessed 16 February, 2013] Available at : http://greateasternappliances.com/touch-screen-mobile-phones-basic-know-how.html>
Shneiderman B. (2012), The Golden Rules [online] [Accessed 17 December 2012] Available at< http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/360/f04/sessions/schneidermanGoldenRules.html>
The Hindu (2003), Touch screen system at Railway station opened [online] [Accessed 08 April 2013] Available at:<http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/09/stories/2003110909830300.htm>
Tomas L. (2013) Touch Screen technology Requirements [online] [Accessed] Available at:<http://www.bing.com/search?q=%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ehow.com%2Flist_7158611_touchscreen-technology-requirements.html%3E.&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC>

Book Reference

Julie A., Jacko and Sears A., Human-computer Interaction handbook,

Sears A., plaisant C., and Shneidenman B. (1992) A New Era for High Precision Touch Screen, Advances in Human-computer Interaction, pp1-33.