Oct 16, 2007
Nokia Evolving The User Interface With Touch Screens and Haptics
Techmeme picked this up today, apparently Nokia has announced an update to its S60 (the operating system in Nokia smart phones) that introduces various UI enhancements including of course the touch screen. Well ok who didn’t see that coming, but what I find very interesting is the inclusion of a thing called “haptics” or actual physical feedback from the touch screen.
S60 touch user interface comes with support for tactile feedback, which means that there is a physical pulse and feedback when the user taps on the screen. This provides better awareness of the device’s response improving the user experience.
The ability to provide physical feedback from a touch screen IMHO is the most important part of this announcement. Most touch screens fail on complex interaction because the person using it only has visual feedback on whether they were successful at an operation.
