Topic 7

Q1. Mobile Touch Screens
A summary of how touch screens work:
The screens are able to sense and interpret the small electric charge given off by our bodies. So when we touch a touch sensitive device the electric field changes within the sensory grid. When this happens the area in which the touch occurred is processed in such a way that the relative center of the touch is established and it initiates the equivalent of a mouse click. Fascinating, I really didn't know that.

How do touch screens improve the efficiency of interactivity? The immediate answer to that is that it cuts out the middle man, a pointing device. The ability to do what comes intuitively to us and point at what we want on a device. Apple are the easiest examples of efficient use of touch technology. All their portable devices nowadays employ some use of touch technology. From the simple pressing of an icon on an iphone to open an application to the pinch gestures used to zoom in on pictures they have really made touch technology almost ubiquitous. One personal favourite of mine is ebook readers. The method with which you turn the page is to drag your fingers across the screen as if you were turning the page.

I would like to note though that an article I read in the sydney morning herald recently points out that intuitive design is only efficient for the culture this intuition is designed around. What is thoughtless habit for one person is a completely foreign practice to another. But for the majority touch screen technology is pretty efficient.

Q2. Technology and accessibility.
It's bland, it's almost common knowledge but it's still worth mentioning the accessibility features built into windows nowadays. Magnifiers to enlarge wherever the mouse pointer is positioned, narrator speaks whatever text is on the screen, there are high contrast modes that increase the visibility of all screen elements (admittedly at the cost of aesthetics) and there are methods of enlarging fonts well beyond the normal sizes. I'd like to note with the font enlargements that the operating system now is quite accommodating to larger fonts sizes reshaping itself around the larger font to retain ease of visibility. For more exotic advances there are now biometric monitoring devices that the elderly can wear and in the event of a dramatic change in their vitals emergency services can be automatically summoned as well as contact made with other nominated parties.