Re:The Game Designer's Calculator
by y03a on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @09:20PM
(#16372899)
To me, not having to hit the home button, swipe, enter pin, find app, tap app, wait for an animation all before I can do anything the app is supposed to do, and then have to do most of that all over again if I don't touch it for a minute, is an excellent reason for a purpose-built device. Also, fucking buttons. I love buttons. Touch screens are awful.
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I can't argue against the general purpose utility of a touchscreen, but I find touchscreens and the software we have built for them to be really cumbersome. For one, buttons on a calculator won't move on me at uncertain points during interaction! Doing things on smartphones is rarely succinct either as you illustrated.
But I also find excuses to put switches and dials on things and am the kind of person to think screen based aircraft cockpits are a regression.
I like touchscreen devices for infrequent input interactions. If my screen is already unlocked and the app I need is already open, for consumption based applications like article reading and video watching, it's great. But as soon as I get an on-screen keyboard, I end up frustrated very quickly.