Presented by Josh Clark.

The New Rules of Designing for Touch

  • Fitts’ Law applies just as much to the finger just as much as it does an external pointing device.
  • The Designer’s Mantra: Let people be lazy.
  • Gestures are the keyboard shortcuts of touch: abstract, not entirely obvious, and for advanced users.
  • Lightswitches: an inspired hack. The lightswitch is a middle man between you and turning on that light.
  • With touch, we create the illusion that there is no illusion. That the user is directly interacting with the behind-the-scenes magic.

Whither the Web?

Interesting Application Interactions

  • Adobe Proto: a touch app offering quick wireframing with gestures that borrow from sketch shorthand.
  • The Clear app was inspired by games and instruments.
  • TouchUp app doesn’t do brush sizes. Instead, you zoom in on the canvas and the brush size remains the same relative to the size of your finger.

Finding What You Can’t See

  • Rely on the accumulated knowledge of interacting with the Web to inform developing new touch-based interfaces.
  • Muscle memory is much faster than visual memory.
  • The OCD Chef cutting board
  • Don Norman’s “Living with Complexity”: taming complexity by minimizing complication
  • We’re moving toward a world where the medium is no longer the message but the message is the medium. Content is the control. Think: photo-based apps with wall-of-photos designs.
  • Sydney Morning Herald iPad app pagination: hold on a dot and you’re shown a list of links to articles on available on that page.

Video games use these techniques to teach:

  1. Coaching: Create an environment where the first interaction is a success.
  2. Leveling Up: Introduce one element as a time and encourage users to learn as they go.
  3. Power Ups: Offer rewards for power users.