Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu!bradb
From: bradb@ai.toronto.edu (Brad Brown)
Subject: Re: Human Factors: Paper-Like Interface
Message-ID: <88Dec14.210656est.10862@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: <2690003@hpdsla.HP.COM> <88Dec10.134912est.10521@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> <2442@ficc.uu.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 88 21:06:55 EST

In article <2442@ficc.uu.net> karl@ficc.uu.net (karl lehenbauer #) writes:
>In article <88Dec10.134912est.10521@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu>, bradb@ai.toronto.edu (Brad Brown) writes:
>> RE IBM's announcement of a "paper-like" interface:
>
>> Q:  How many people would really want an interface like this?  ...
>> I don't really think, however, that a stylus would be better for
>> text input ...
>
>An obvious answer is to draw a typewriter keyboard on your LCD display
>and use its touch sensitivity to determine what "keys" you type.

That's not a very good answer -- have you ever tried to type on a membrane
keyboard (one that has no tactile feedback) before?  It's not easy or
accurate.  Perhaps the keyboard will start to go away in machines like
executive workstations and shop-floor computers, where it only gets in 
the way anyway, but in the case of people who have to work with text, 
be it words or program code, I think the keyboard is the better way to
go, perhaps *aided* by touch-sensitive input devices.  Now if we could 
only make a _better_ keyboard so everyone would be happy...

					(-:  Brad Brown  :-)
					bradb@ai.toronto.edu