The New Your Times posted an article titled Multitouch Screens Could Enliven New Devices today. They highlight a company called Touchco and discuss the difference between their technology, interpolating force-sensitive resistance (IFSR), and captive touch technology that we are currently seeing in devices like the iPhone.

Here’s a video of Touchco demonstrating their product:
Touchco IFSR Enhanced User Interaction

Touchco company claims that they can produce this material at the claimed low price of $10.00 per square foot including their profit margin. Their expecting this type of screen technology to be used in e-readers and musical instruments.

This got me thinking about enhancing the user interfaces by using force as a additional interaction variable.  The obvious example would be drawing applications that layout thicker lines when a user presses harder.  I could also envision an application where touching an object selects and drags that object while applying more pressure might give you additional rich contextual menus options.  Maybe pressure will end up being the right click of the multitouch universe.

My question, and the main reason I’m posting this thread is:  what other ways could the pressure variable be used to better enhance the user experience?

Update: (new video)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 9:18 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.