iPad, touch and the new interactive frontier.

The announcment of the iPad was littered with hyperbole from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, calling it “the best way to browse the web”. We look at how, with current web interfaces, that’s all talk.

iPad: the web isn't designed for it

I’m an iPhone 3G owner, and, it has to be said, a happy one. It makes calls. I can send text messages, email (somewhat dodgy) photos, and catch up with people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

I can also use it to browse websites, but I’m under no pretences that the experience is anything other than lacklustre in comparison with my 23” LCD screen and a mouse.

With the iPad, Steve Jobs is actually claiming that this scaled-up iPhone browser is like nothing else, the  “best way to browse the web”. And, sure, the extra square inches look to make a difference – text is actually readable without zooming, and you’re probably not going to be hitting the wrong link quite as often as you stab at the screen with your porky fingers. You still won’t get Flash, but I’ll leave that issue for others to talk out.

I’m happy to concede that for many people using the iPad will be a pleasure, and much more convenient than a laptop. So, I really don’t have too much problem with general use, reading the news or looking up a recipe whilst lounging on the sofa. It’s almost perfect for that.

Touching the Web

So, we come to my major issue with touch devices in general. Sure, the applications built specifically for them are a joy to use, extremely natural, and designed to take advantage of the tactile nature.

The problem is, the web isn’t. We’re all very used to receiving feedback from the web by moving the mouse. Links change colour. Images have hover effects, even animations. Everything is designed to let us know what we can and cannot do, and whilst it’s eminently arguable that any interface that leaves a user guessing is flawed, it’s nice to have this kind of interaction and creativity.

Using :hover is a stock-standard way of ensuring users aren’t confused as to what they can click. It’s reassuring. I know that if my Dad is browsing a real-estate website, he’ll understand that anything he points the mouse at that reacts can be clicked. It’s simple and communicative – a bit like my Dad, apart from the communicative part.

Taking this feature away will limit the average user’s confidence in what they are doing, making for more confusion in an industry where we, the people who drive it, are already light-years ahead in our understanding of the medium.

If anything, touch devices like the iPad and the iPod Touch actually stifle the web as it is, which is no good thing.

How do we solve this problem?

If touch-screen really is the future of browsing the web (and this seems to be almost certain), we’re going to have to set up a new paradigm for interaction.

Standard text links are mostly fine as they are – provided they are underlined. Underlining them does enough to tell most users they are looking at a link. This may be an aesthetic choice we as designers wish to avoid, but with touch, it’s absolutely necessary. Image links are more tricky. It might be appropriate to have a :touch state, which magnifies the image slightly, allowing it to be touched again to continue.

The toughest are things like block elements that, on hover, reveal information – such as drop-down menus, or the main cycling images on the Hench landing page, which reveal project information. These desperately need a :touch state of their own, one that reveals the information whilst again allowing the user to touch again to follow the link.

We also need to be able to escape this action and stay on the same page, perhaps by framing the selection with a darker transparent window, which we can touch to cancel.

In 2008 Apple filed a patent for touchscreen technology that would sense when a user’s hand is hovering over the interface, and whlst this isn’t here yet, it might help, if the technology is good enough. At the moment, any idea of hovering a finger is flawed – it’d be tiring, and the user is likely to accidentally touch the screen.

Conclusions

In all, we are looking at a difficult problem, made all the more pressing by the proliferation of jQuery and other javascript libraries, which promote this kind of interaction.

If touch becomes our primary means of web interaction, we are going to have to really change the way we build websites – each one in itself will need to be touch focused, and we’re going to need a set of tools standardising how multi-touch and gestures work. It’s going to be a huge transition, probably the greatest in the short history of our industry.

So, sorry Steve, but I really don’t think that the iPad will offer the best web experience at launch. We aren’t quite there yet. But I think, if we can nail down the interaction issues, we will be looking at a better web for everyone. It just isn’t going to be built the way it is today.