Mice Should Die!
Originally posted July 23, 2008
ZDNet published a blog post by Adrian Kingsley-Houghes questioning the death of the computer mouse over the next few years. ZDNet referenced a sensationalist article in the BBC News, that the computer mouse will be extinct in the next few years and replaced by touch-screens and facial recognition technologies. A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the mouse in the next 3 to 5 years.
I think the mouse will be replaced by touch-screen technologies. Let’s hope facial recognition technologies do not become the norm. Anyone who owns an iPhone knows the productivity of the finger gestures to zoom and navigate. I wonder:
- How productive are large touch-screens? Are they durable or affordable?
- Can the touch-screen interface be extended to include gestures for the visually impaired? This could include gestures for task automation.
- Can the intelligent keyboards on iPhone or Blakberry be used with the large touch-screen? This could provide task specific keyboard layouts.
- Could gestures be added to the interface to provide alternative summary views of a web page? Alternative views could include text only or sectional views.
- Could gestures be added to the interface to read just a paragraph or section of a web page?
- Could navigation gestures be added to the touch-screen interface? Gestures could include go to the next link, go to the submit button or go to the top of the page or menu bar.
What do you think? I would like to see the day where we only need our fingers to input information or navigate on a web page.