Okay, so I’ve given up on the slate PC. Now, I’m not saying I’ve given up on the slate form factor. If you’ve read my previous posts you know that I believe it to be intuitively easy for people to just pick up and use. It’s not its intuitiven-ess that’s a problem, it’s the input method and the software that runs on it.
The reason it’s not ready for prime time is a combination of factors, not any one thing. I intended to use the slate PC for several types of tasks: editing photographs, drawing, writing (specifically, blogging), and browsing. What I found is that of these tasks, only drawing was significantly enhanced by the stylus and slate combination.
I don’t know if drawing was better just because I’ve been drawing with crayons and pencils since childhood. I tend not to think so as I’ve use the mouse for years drawing in Adobe Illustrator and in Photoshop. I can’t seem to get as good with the mouse as I am with a pen. This fact is obvious whenever I try and sign my name with the mouse. It just doesn’t work.
Regarding the other tasks I mentioned, the stylus interface simply didn’t add anything new, or made the experience worse. In user interface terms, the stylus doesn’t sufficiently improve the input “bandwidth” beyond that of a mouse pointer: you are still controlling a single point on the screen and clicking on things. If you want to see a touch device that does increase this bandwidth, just take a look at Jeff Han’s work with multi-touch displays. Much better than a mouse, I’d say.
To be fair, I should be specific regarding these other tasks:
Regarding photography, although I did see similar improvements as with the drawing tasks, the stylus point tended to obscure what was under it. When you’re doing touch-up work on someone’s face, you really need to see what’s under your cursor. Although better than a mouse at this task, the stylus interface paled in comparison to a (arguably) more conventional Wacom tablet. The Wacom tablet gives you the control but since its drawing surface isn’t the screen, you can see what you’re drawing.
Regarding writing, obviously a keyboard just wins hands down. I was willing to put up with writing on a slate provided that the other tasks sufficiently increased my efficiency. As you’ve been reading, this didn’t turn out to be the case. 2534412096
- I classify all other interaction with a device as “interface manipulation” tasks. You are manipulating an interface when you’re clicking on buttons, which is the major activity in web browsing. The stylus interface sufficed, but again it wasn’t any better than a mouse. To be fair, I recognize the interface running on the slate PC was created for mouse-based interaction. However, that’s not an excuse you can give when you’re worried about usability issues. Perhaps a whole new interface could be created that is optimized for stylus usage (such as “crossing interfaces”), but that’s not really the point. The point is that the current windows, icons, menus, pointer experience (a.k.a. WIMP)) wasn’t any better with a stylus instead of a mouse.
Until manufacturers find an economically feasible way to increase the input bandwidth beyond that of a mouse, I think they won’t find much success in pushing these new types of interfaces. Even allowing two fingers to operate a device concurrently is already proving to show great promise. For example, the two-finger scroll gesture on new Apple laptops is quite useful (I use it all the time without even thinking about it), and everyone’s ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the iPhone pinch maneuver.
So, at the end of this little experiment, I came away with a $2k+ sketch pad. That’s cool, I guess.