Do you really want to touch things, like screens, these days?

April 29, 2009 by Dave Haynes

My first reaction to a piece put up by Digital Signage Today, titled “Swine flu and interactive screens: Tips for protecting your customers and staff“, was “Huh?”

But actually, when I think about it, would I really be all that keen to start monkeying around with some product touch-screen thing in a store or public venue, when 100s of other fingers have already touched it that day? In the middle of a flu epidemic or wrose, true pandemic.

Well, no.

Touch-screens are very cool, but I remain convinced there’s a place for big dumb buttons beside a screen, that someone can push with their elbow if need be. There are endless surfaces we touch in a day to day journey that could harbour and transmit a virus, but there are things we have to touch and then extraneous things maybe we can pass on for now.

This thing will end, and hopefully with little real carnage, but right now interactive screens have a serious “Ick” factor to deal with.