One button, two buttons, three buttons, ten million buttons. Beige, black, white, red with polka dots. Glow-in-the-dark, see through. Right-handed, left-handed, both. Vertical for RSI patients, trackballs for weirdoes like myself, Apple's puck mouse for sado-masochists. The ubiquitous mouse comes in all possible shapes, forms, sizes, and colours, but according to our friend The Analyst, the glorious age of the mouse is coming to and end. Do we believe The Analyst?
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Member since:2006-02-04
I think the point you made regarding your fingers or what have you obscuring the interface is an excellent one. There is actually something to be said for a interface device that isn't part of what you are looking at.
The best example I can give is the Nintendo DS. Its lower screen is a touch screen and you can use your finger or stylus. One game I have, Zelda (Phantom Hourglass) uses the touch screen for movement. You perform gestures for some of the moves. One of the big problems is it is easy for your hand to be in the way of what you are looking at. For example, you do a whirlwind hit with your sword by 'drawing' a circle around your character. At the same time though, you cover up part of the screen to do this.
YMMV but touching your screen isn't always the best way to interact with what you see on it.
Member since:
2006-10-08
The article was interesting, but... "we are seeing a significant move away from the idea of the one- or two-button mouse" - hello, good morning, Sir! Mice usually have three buttons. Oh well, you're not from UNIX / Linux / X11 world... :-) Continuing reading the article, I could follow the idea that there are alternatives developing for the mouse, but a "significant move", where does the authour see it? He must have a strange definition of what a "signigicant move" is.
From OSNews' introduction: "The ubiquitous mouse comes in all possible shapes, forms, sizes, and colours, but according to our friend The Analyst, the glorious age of the mouse is coming to and end. Do we believe The Analyst?" - It's easy to believe somebody who claims something that is completely predictable. I say: "The sun will explode in some millions of years." or "World climate will change." The fact is: Sooner or later it will happen. But when - that's the question. So after all, I may admit that I do believe The Analyst (or at least I believe my own predictions, founded in a healthy common sense), but the author's argumentation isn't very understandable to me.
Will the mouse go away soon? No, I don't think so. Why? Hmmm... in my opinion, the explaination will look like this:
When the mouse got a mainstream interaction tool, there were rumors that the keyboard will go away soon, because we'll click on symbols instead of using keys on a keyboard, and later on, we will just talk to the machine. This phantasy hasn't come to reality yet, allthough there are already interesting projects. But mainstream? No.
The same development will occur for touchscreen like devices. First, they are present only at niche uses (e. g. POS) as something you can serioulsly use, everything else is, at it has mentioned before, still at "toy stage".
Analogy: We need the keyboard today to make all the fine OSes and the drivers and the applications that use mouse input, and this will be true for any other input (touchscreen input, voice input) as long as there's no way to obsolete the keyboard. An input method will only be obsoleted if there's a replacement that is better (read: will be used) - see punched cards or magnetic drums for example. This wisdom is true for any kind of technical solution (as long as money (read: industry and capital, and finally the society, too) supports it - see petrol powered cars).
And the mouse? Well, initially, the mouse was something you could optionally add to your computer equipment. You could live without it, if you wanted to, or just plug it in. No need for further hardware. For touchscreens, you need new hardware - i. e. the touchscreen, or something like a transparent layer you glue onto your CRT or LCD, making the image more... squishy. :-)
Another interesting aspect has been mentioned: Using a touchscreen always has the bad habit of having your fingers (or other body parts) where you need to look at (the screen with your interface), so you're always covering something while you're interacting. This would involve the neccessarity to redesign OSes and applications.
Applications in general would need to change, but then, the requirements of users would need to change, too. What is today's most used office application? A word processor or a typesetting system, replacing the typewriter. Typing on (onto) the screen? Well, difficult, just imagine how it would look like. And if problems occur, will users start beating their computer's screen with boxing gloves? :-)
The Age of the Mouse: Ending? Yes. But when? Time will tell.
Ah, and mice gave us all the fun, fun like this: http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_mice.shtml :-)