Notes on Multitouch and Museums

I caused a bit of a stir last night over twitter (if the torrent of @replies is anything to go by) so I feel I should justify my position somewhat. If not, at least I’ll get it off my chest and you all can tear it apart and we all can move on.

The topic is multitouch screens. A few clarifications:

• I don’t hate touchscreen. It makes writing on my PDA easier by the fact I can move the cursor with a million button presses.
• I don’t think multitouch is rubbish. I would happily have one in my house and there are a lot of people doing a lot of work on it all with interesting results.
• Anyone who tries to confuse multitouch with multi-user fails. Every game console with more than two ports is multi-user. There is a difference.

Now, onto the main criticisms on why I can’t get excited about multitouch screens and why won’t change anything in museums.

• I wouldn’t be the cynic critic I am if I’m not sensitive to massive amounts of hype normally equaling the same amount of disappointment. Seeing it in James Bond film and CSI Miami didn’t make me think, “This will revolutionise museums”. My reaction tends to be, “Well, it’s pretty”. Multitouch screens are all over the place right now and there doesn’t seem to be a designed purpose for museums yet.
• The ideal of “experiencing in group” is a funny one. A group is already in the museum, yet there’s a worry they’ll become lost souls if their hive mind isn’t collectively focused onto the same thing.
• If your museum content needs a hulking lump of technology to make it interesting, you have much bigger problems.
• I may be bias; I do like my technology to merge information with reality so needs to be mobile and cloud-computing based. In this day and age, having a computer interface with no connectivity, entirely standalone access makes it a kiosk. Sure, a very pretty, very expensive kiosk that’s done things a kiosk has never done before, but still a kiosk.
• Put it this way; would you buy a computer that would only allow you on Facebook and do nothing else? Sure, it would be fun for a while to have a dedicated device and you could see what everyone else is doing, but there’s no email or even a word processor. Wouldn’t that seem a little thin?
• I try to imagine scenarios with a multitouch screen.
  • One is a dozen people crowded around a single MTS. They all divide up the space to stand next to it, given themselves the same amount of touching space, probably that of… one normal sized monitor.
  • Second is a lot of people crowd around a MTS, flicking data at each other. The one person who wants to find something out (For research? Interest?) wishes they had there own screen away from distraction, so they go find… a computer.
  • There is a MTS with objects from a museum collection that you can move about, turn around etc. There is also an equally sized box with the handling objects in it. Everyone get really excited about the MTS. Why? Because people love a gimmick.
  • A MTS covered in children by parents who have discovered a form of digital creche. 
• Okay, if we replaced every single touchscreen in museums with multitouch tomorrow, would it make any long-term difference? Or would people get bored of them as they did regular touchscreens?
• 2D gestures, no matter how many touches, isn’t going to change anything. This video shows the next generation of technology gestures. (Okay, the video doesn’t show any 3D gestures, but how hard could it be to program?)
• You know what is multi-user and has 3D gestures? A Nintendo Wii.
• You know what was multi-user and had Gesture recognition? A Playstation Eyetoy (In 2003! Not exactly a 3D gesture when you think about it). 
• I keep thinking of the old joke of NASA spending billions on researching a pen that could write upside down and in zero-G whilst the Russians took a pencil.
• A touchscreen with a button that says “zoom in” that I could do with one finger would be replaced the a three fingered movement that someone would have to explain to me. Whilst possibly used in a nice teknomagi-ish element isn’t making a UI simpler.
• Okay, so several people could be pressing “buttons” on the same bit of screen, but… so what? The group-interaction doesn’t wash with me because putting these in museums stop making them for “groups”, they’re meant to be for the public. An activity that requires  a group to complete (say some kind of game) needs  me, on my own, to have to either join a group or not play. Well, I doubt a museum would do that, so all activities could be done independently so not to exclude anyone. So why can’t I have my own screen? It’s independent anyway, why do I have to breathe down someone’s neck to use it? And if it’s just me on my own with my own screen, the purpose of having hundreds of simultaneous finger-pokes becomes slightly redundant.

That’s it. To those making this stuff, keep up the good work. I imagine one of those multitouch tables being a fully functional DJ twin-turntables and mixing desk (which would be awesome). Over to you, comments welcome. Let’s keep it all nice.