Microsoft had been planning to introduce a unique 3D Touch feature with a flagship Windows phone back in 2014. While the device was canceled, the work behind Microsoft’s Kinect-like gestures lives on. In a new Microsoft Research video, the software maker is revealing some of the features it was working on under the guise of “pre-touch sensing for mobile interaction.”
This is exactly the kind of cool stuff that could’ve given Windows Phone a very interesting edge. Unlike Apple’s 3D touch, which is a completely pointless gimmick, the examples in the Microsoft video seem quite useful, and do actually streamline a number of mobile UI interactions.
I hope this isn’t shelved permanently.
This means CSS :hover would have worked on the next Windows Phone?
Depends on whether the browser maps input to it or reserves it for their vision of how hyperlink indication should work.
Edited 2016-05-06 03:52 UTC
It looks cool, just like almost everything from Microsoft Research.
But it doesn’t look very useful or userfriendly, just like 3D Touch doesn’t.
I don’t know why this video and this tech showed up everywhere. It isn’t like there will be any device sold with it anytime soon
At least 3D touch has _some_ tactile feedback (my finger works as a a pretty good pressure sensor).
I have graphics tablets with a “hover” mode – I find them tiresome. It is too easy to make a mistake (press by accident – especially when looking elsewhere) and actually tiring. I like the rest my finger/pencil on the thing I am working on.
The one bit of this I _WOULD_ take (very happily) is the ability to fade in menus when a finger is within proximity. That seems very user friendly. Handsome stuff. Especially on the video player demonstration it is clear to see the benefit of that when there is no other user interface present on the display… “pre-emptive user experience” is beautiful _when_ it works!
What would be the benefit of pre-emptiveness compared to just a tap like it works now? In theory the pre-emptiveness is of course better, but in reality I don’t see any difference. My finger has to move 1 cm less from the 50 cm it was away…which might be more difficult compared to just touching it. The same with 3D Touch by the way, it is much harder to start with a precise amount of touch compared to a “just touch”.
Of course with enough practice both pre-emptive and 3D Touch will start to work, but I still don’t see any practical benefit compared to long-pressing
In short: precise distance/pressure touching seems much harder than duration based touching
You never tapped the pause button, only to have the UI disappear right before you hit the screen, causing you to just activate the UI again (or vice versa!)?
I can’t count how many times I had to do the little tap-a-tap dance to play/pause a video.
Bingo…
Or the tap/tap/tap/TAP/TAP! dance to get rid of the HUD controls that, occasionally, seem to have a visibility life of their own.
However, it might have been canned because this was the only use case that presented itself as ‘good’ and the cost benefit wasn’t there.
Yes, that was the first scenario that came into my mind but I still don’t really see how this would change that in a meaningful way.
Without: You tap the system to show the UI, you see the pause button, you tap the pause button
With: You don’t tap but get really close to show the UI, you see the pause button, you tap the pause button.
So yes, it saves you a tap but you will have to be quite precise which would slow you down and make the tap just as fast.
Again, technically this seems better but without a measurable real world difference. Meanwhile you need extra hardware, software and it seems like something that would drain some battery
Edited 2016-05-06 14:26 UTC
An obvious use case would be just to provide feedback that some widget (Or something that merely looks like a widget) at least does something before you tap it.
I am frequently frustrated by things that look like I should be able to tap, but can’t. I’m often not sure if I missed, or if the widget just isn’t interactive at that moment in time.
A much cheaper solution is to just throw out “flat design” and recognize that we once had a nice middle-ground between skeuomorphism and flat design which gave us good “is interaction widget” and “is widget… but currently disabled” cues.
Well, this mostly happens with webpages, or games.
But, this is definitely better than Apple’s 3D touch, which doesn’t do anything unless you touch, in which case a touch of some kind is always registered
Games, I can sort of understand. They’ve always been all over the place, they predate mice, and, when mice came around, they made their interaction hints by letting mouse hover move the selection indicator for arrow-key selection of menu items.
…but, on the web, they have no excuse. If they’re going to override the “different color and underlined” hint that links get and the “OS-style button look” hint that buttons get, then it’s their responsibility to ensure that they provide substitute non-hover hints for both “is interaction widget” and “this widget is disabled”.
“they predate mice”
Are you sure about that? Mice have been around since 1968.
Apart from a couple of outliers (oxo (tic-tac-toe) and SpaceQuest on the PDP-11) the games industry started much later.
so very true.
“…What would be the benefit of pre-emptiveness…”
My wife’ cellphone turn on screen, even if deposited at the highs of a cabinet, looking at the ceiling. complete darkness, at the other extreme of the room.
Just need to wave my hand, or a very very little shh! sound.
I especially like the middle finger restart. Very useful!
Is that -technically- preemptiveness?
Let’s actually compare. 3D touch works today and gives you essentially a right click on the screen. Very useful. I assume you agree that the right button on your mouse is useful? 3D touch is exactly that.
So what about this hover detection?
Well they give some examples:
1. Present UI controls when a finger approaches the screen. This is absolutely horrible usability. So just as you are about to tap the screen, a button appears underneath you and you immediately accidentally tap it. Who could possibly think this is good?
2. Grip adaptive UI. So every app needs many different UIs based on grip? Super confusing for users, tons of work to implement, and a documentation nightmare.
3. Revealing hyperlinks. This is what proper web design already does. If you need your browser to highlight links clearly the page is terrible.
4. Touch and selection based on pre-touch movement speed. Anyone ever have a problem flicking content on a smartphone? Didn’t think so.
The gaming example is the only one that makes sense.
No, that is not what 3D touch is at all.
3D Touch is like pressing your left mouse button a little bit to get function A, a bit more to get function B and a lot more to get function C. We are talking pressure here, not duration!
A right-click is very useful and is already well taken care of by the long-press that works without any additional hardware on every OS and on every mobile device with touch.
“Touch and selection based on pre-touch movement speed. Anyone ever have a problem flicking content on a smartphone? Didn’t think so.”
Actually, I do – the number of times I’ve accidentally clicked a link when trying to scroll through long content is immeasurable, pressing back frequently takes you back to the top of the article. A real pain in the arse.
Microsoft will release it as a part of windows 11, where it will completely replace right clicking. Those using legacy hardware like mice or laptops from 2016 or earlier will also be able trigger the event by moving the mouse pointer over the desired item and hitting a page-up left-control key combination.