With touchscreens as the dominant
input style on mobile devices, users are able to manipulate the information and
graphics directly on the screen using their fingers or sometimes a stylus.
Compared to former versions, today’s touchscreens may be very good in terms of
color rendering, viewing angles and brightness. However, to give the user the
impression of directly manipulating the displayed information, there is another
characteristic which has to be considered: latency.
In the world of displays,
latency or lag is the “difference between the time a signal
is input into a display and the time it is shown by the display.” [1] Combining
this with touch-capabilities, one can say it is the difference between touching
the display, computing the input and showing the result on the screen.
Today’s touchscreens as e.g.
those on smartphones have latencies of about 100ms, which is already pretty
fast but still produce a noticeable lag when executing rapid movements or gestures.
For example when quickly dragging an icon from one corner to another corner on
all of today’s tablets, the finger reaches its goal a tiny bit earlier than the
moving icon, giving it the effect of trying to follow and catch up with its
manipulator, that is the finger. This lag may give the impression of not
directly manipulating the display’s information and therefore impairs the
overall user experience, especially the one of immediate feedback.
However, recent developments
at Microsoft Research Labs and their Applied Sciences Group may put a stop to
that issue, as they were able to reduce the latency by 99% as compared to
average touchscreens, giving the display a latency of 1ms and hence not
perceivable for the human eye [2].
The results they were able to
achieve in a lab environment are impressive and definitely worth to check out
if you always felt to be slowed down by your display’s reaction time. However,
if this technology ever sees the light of electronic stores or that of your
home will depend on the costs to make it a mass-product and the consumers’ care of
a more natural feeling as today’s touchscreens already do a decent job.
Sources:
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