Touch Interfaces Are A Natural Way To Interact With Work Related Content

Yesterday I was watching waiters at the Old Post Office Cafe in Lake Tahoe interact with their Point Of Sale system. I watched multiple waiters walk up to the system and interact with it efficiently and quickly with one finger. I wondered why enterprise software can't be like that. Is it because enterprise software is designed for occasional users. That can't be an excuse. Air line self check-in systems, ATMs and grocery store self checkout systems are designed for occasional users and they work well. In fact such systems are very popular with users.

Touch Interfaces are an intuitive way to interact with content and even get routine things done. Touching something to grab it, move it or interact with it comes  naturally to human beings. That is one of the reasons why computing systems using the touch interface are very popular. Moreover, people today in most parts of the world are familiar with touch interfaces at the airport, bank ATMs, and supermarket. Store clerks have been using machines with touch interfaces to do their job for more than ten years now.

With the advent of tablet devices and smart phones with touch screens, product designers and user experience designers may have to think about touch interfaces first and point and click next.

Designers of enterprise software can learn a lot from the day to day touch interfaces that regular people use.