a blog post at 37 Signals talked about touch screens creating an opportunity or new set of solutions for the 'hover'...
I'm looking forward to see what the new gesture set or interface change for hover is.. hopefully that will unfold as people go back to what the original purpose/context of the 'hover' was for and abstract it out again in these new domains.
What did strike my interest was the premise the post had regarding adaptability of 'power users' to touch domains'
"all with tiny movements of the fingers. For those of us who work all day on computers, touch interfaces are not an impending disruption."
How interaction designers work within what may become new ergonomic heuristics of ensuring long term comfort and safety at a workstation (or place sustained work activity is carried out on an interface) will be critical . Where you look and where you interact may be one and the same. Ensuring larger gestures are still safe and sustainable replacing that only the 'tiny finger movements' used to do present an intriguing design boundary.
Where your at a work station hopefully the 'arm' is at rest & wrists are supported for long periods whilst your working.
Small movements along the same horizontal plane to get to the mouse and back minimize grosser (larger) motor movements across the shoulder and neck (I'm not up with physiology so forgive me for any generalizations) .
Where the eye looks and the positioning of limbs and range of motions for corresponding gesture are all now in play. We'll be all either really buff or making physiotherapists and worker compensation administrators very happy.
Check out
Designing for Humans blog posts tagged for anthropometric data
Schematics post on touch screen ergonomics
