Does Touch Make Sense on the PC Platform?

By Chris Connery, Vice President, PC and Large Format Commercial Displays, DisplaySearch and John Jacobs, Director, Notebook Market Research, DisplaySearch

With all-in-one PCs being positioned as the savior of the desktop PC, a debate is brewing over whether touch interfaces for desktop or even notebook PCs are the next big thing.

In the process of consulting with companies throughout the display supply chain, we hear of internal debates about touch screens on desktop monitors, all-in-one PCs (AIOs) and notebooks, with about as many different opinions as there are people in the room.
In one recent discussion, the opinion was voiced that everyone over the age of 40 immediately dismisses the idea of a touch interface for PCs used for standard purposes-not iPhone “computing”-but sitting at your desk or on the couch, writing e-mails, doing taxes, surfing the web, shopping for shoes….

Some argue that moving one’s hands from the keyboard and the mouse to the screen is inefficient. Others note that touching the screen smudges it or makes it dirty. Smudging can be mitigated by the type of touch technology or by the addition of additional layers; however, but each adds additional cost. Others argue that touching the screen on a notebook can tip the entire computer over. Aside from these arguments, legacy issues, especially those related to how this generation of users were taught to use a computer as well as the software interface, are hampering the adoption of touch on PCs.

Touch is almost required on most portable devices (cell phones and PMPs), but most of these have interfaces that are designed for touch. In addition to designing the operating system to make touch intuitive, touch is also a good fit for hand-held devices as the only way to grow the display without increasing the size of the device by eliminating the physical keyboard.

The question of touch interfaces for consumer PCs will once again be tested with the new crop of low-priced AIOs. There have already been touch-based AIOs such as HP’s TouchSmart on the market for many years, but most of these have been high-end, feature-rich products, which many argue was what limited their penetration. The new crop of low-priced AIOs ($499-699) will include many with both touch and non-touch varieties, so retailers will struggle with which one to carry.

Some industry players have stated that they will only carry AIOs with a touch interface, but others, especially discount retailers that may not have played in the PC market before, will carry the lower-priced non-touch versions. DisplaySearch estimates that touch for a desktop size display can add as much as $100-150 to the retail price depending upon the touch solution. The cost increase is in direct proportion to the size of the display, so the BOM cost of the touch component could be $60-70 using the most common types of touch technology. Retailers carrying touch-only products indicate that touch is a sales mechanism rather than a must-have or a mouse replacement.

For the small number of touch-enabled AIOs already on the market, there are indications that the sales mix skews towards 30-59 year olds, with the ratio of acceptance favoring males by 60% to 40%. Males in this age range are the traditional gadget geeks, so might not reflect the mainstream market for AIOs, so historical data might not be the best predictor for this new category.

For touch-enabled notebook PCs, we must split the market into two segments. Slate-style (think of an electronic clipboard) tablet PCs have been in the market for many years, primarily serving the needs of a long list of vertical markets from field service workers to health care. Convertible tablet PCs, those that mostly closely resemble a traditional “clamshell-style” notebook PC have also been in the market for many years, and have had some success in education as well as the vertical markets like public safety (police and fire) and the military. They have only recently begun to be marketed to consumers, again by HP with their TouchSmart tx2. DisplaySearch estimates a BOM cost (including digitizer) of $70-80, with alternative touch solutions estimated to cost $15-30 for a typical notebook.

In 2001, Bill Gates showed prototype tablet PCs at Comdex-a year ahead of their 2002 launch-and was quoted in a company news release, “It’s a PC that is virtually without limits and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.” So far, Mr. Gates has missed his prediction. Currently, tablet PCs account for less than 3% of the notebook PC market. Historically, convertible tablet PCs have been priced at a substantial premium (as much as 30%) to traditional notebook PCs. Size and weight have also been issues. The touch panel made the display thicker and heavier, and because of the physical nature of the convertible tablet PC design, a stronger, and consequently heavier hinge was required to support the display while also being able to rotate and pivot on a single axis. And finally, software has hindered the growth of this market. For many years, tablet PCs required a more pricey “Tablet PC Edition” OS from Microsoft, and the lack of a killer app for touch-screen-enabled notebook PCs has hindered growth. While many may marvel at the touch screen technology, the next question was typically, “OK, now what can I do with it?”

With the popularity of Apple’s iPhone, the knowledge, acceptance and viability of touch screen as a user interface has never been higher. There are many more companies involved in the touch-screen supply chain than ever before. In addition to Apple, Microsoft and most major PC brands, there are a large number of third-party software developers developing applications specifically designed to capitalize on features of touch screens. What remains to be seen in the PC market is whether touch screens will make the leap from hand-held devices like mini-note (netbooks), and then to larger notebook PCs.

Mice and other pointing devices have been used for 30 years to navigate and point on the computer screen. However, the oldest pointing device is still the index finger. Touch screen-related companies are counting on people to remember this fact.

http://www.deskone.com/does-touch-make-sense-on-the-pc-platform-displaysearch-blog/ Does Touch Make Sense on the PC Platform? | DisplaySearch Blog

[...] more: Does Touch Make Sense on the PC Platform? | DisplaySearch Blog Tags: after-being, couch, file-cabinet, firm-meeting, opinion, packages, squeaky, the-display, [...]
http://www.touchuserinterface.com/2009/05/are-touchscreens-really-good-for-pcs.html Touch User Interface

Does Touch Make Sense on the PC Platform?…

I came across a good question about the touch user interface for PCs at DisplaySearch Blog: Does Touch Make Sense on the PC Platform?…
http://www.canvys.com Todd Fender

The opinion of another 40+ year old…

In order for touch to be effective at the desktop level, the design and architecture of the desktop, as we know it today, would have to change drastically.

Touch, at face level, for example when interacting with a large screen display used for wayfinding, works well for short periods of time (1-3 minutes)

Touch, at levels below the face, may work well for longer periods of time – but mainly for short spurts of time.

At the desktop level, many users interface with their environment, sometimes for hours at a time. If the desktop design remained as it is today, ergonomically speaking, it would be a nightmare.

Although, office workers may find themselves with less arm flab after several weeks of lifting their arms to touch their screens, I’m fairly certain that the European community will cry foul and ammend TCO ’06 ergonomic standards very rapidly.

However, if Nintendo entered the office desktop space with an Office Wii Fit console, maybe touch would work.
http://www.vissumo.com Garrick Infanger

I agree with the first comment by Todd Fender that ergonomically much needs to change before touch is utilized in desktop/laptop use. The other major challenge is dealing with my ‘fat fingers’. The mouse cursor is so precise and effortless to operate while my finger and hand obscures the screen and often mis-pokes.

Perhaps the products will evolve or the OS will adapt, but in our current environment touch seems better suited for AIO devices, kiosks, and mobile devices.
http://www.vissumo.com/blog/?p=266 Touch Screen Usability « Touchscreen Blog

[...] Fender commenting on the blog DisplaySearch makes an interesting point. In order for touch to be effective at the desktop level, the design and [...]
http://www.ruggedpcreview.com Conrad H. Blickenstorfer

Whether or not touch makes sense or becomes popular depends a lot on the implementation. We considered large-scale deployment of HP touch PCs back in the mid to late 1980s (it was not the 150 of the early 1980s; they had some other consumer-oriented touch systems after that), but the screen smudging alone turned people off, and they also felt lifting their arms to touch a vertically oriented desktop display was disruptive and cumbersome. I adore my iMac24 all-in-one and iPhone-smooth touch might be welcome, but it would not work if I had to lift my arm above my head every time I wanted to move a window or scale a picture. Most adept computer users need less than a square inch to whip the cursor all over a big screen; doing the same with an outstretched arm on a 24-inch display would be very tiresome. Touch, however, might work great on a tablet and perhaps even notebooks.

The vision behind all this, of course, is not new and goes back to way before Gates re-introduced the Tablet PC in 2001. In 1991, Greg Slyngstand, who was then GM of Microsoft’s Pen Computing Group (which, in turn, was formed in response to earlier efforts by Apple, Go, GRiD and others), said., “The impact of pens on computing will be far greater than the mouse. The two key benefits—extreme portability and ease of use—will enable tiny, low-cost PCs that will appeal to a broader spectrum of users than ever before. Imagine “smart paper” that can do everything paper can as well as recognize objects, do calculations, neatly organize, duplicate and transmit itself.”

It’s almost 20 years later and that vision never really worked out, but that’s primarily because the technology just wasn’t there yet. It still isn’t, but recent developments have offered glimpses of a future that might be. The incredible smoothness of the iPhone has suddenly lit the imagination and there’s now a rush to scale the experience onto larger platforms and the desktop. So the question really is whether this scaling is possible and feasible.