Touchscreen Terminology in Technical Documentation
Introduction: What is Touchscreen Technology?
Touchscreen technology is a relatively new technology that is used in smartphones, tablets, and personal computers. It is a screen that you can interact with by touching it.
Touchscreens are often used in devices like tablets, cellphones, and computers. They allow people to interact with the screen by touching it.
The History of Touchscreens & How it Evolved into a Global Phenomenon
Touchscreens have been around since the late 1960s. The first touchscreen was a video game that was controlled by a stylus. The first touchscreen phone was released in 1973 and it had no buttons. The first touchscreen phone with a keypad came out in 1982 and it had a stylus for input. In 1994, Apple released the Newton, which was the first commercial success of any touch-based product. In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone and it became an instant success due to its touch screen interface.
In 2010, Apple introduced multi-touch gestures to make interaction easier on the iPhone’s small screen and that same year they also released their iPad tablet computer with a larger screen which further popularized touchscreens because of its size and ease of use.
In 2012, Samsung launched their Galaxy Gear smartwatch as a competitor to the Apple Watch. The device came with a 1.63 inch Super AMOLED display, 4GB of storage, and a 1GHz processor.
Uses of Touchscreen Technology in the World Today
Touchscreen technology is the use of interactive screens that can be touched to provide input. It is most commonly found in smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices.
It has been used in various industries like education, healthcare, retail, and banking to provide a more interactive experience for the user.
It has also been used in various business cases like customer engagement at retail stores or banks or even at restaurants for ordering food. Touchscreens are an efficient way to interact with customers without having to wait on line.
New Touchscreen Language
A quiet but rapid transformation is taking place not only in mobile hardware but in technical documentation as well. All technical writers will soon need to be very familiar with touchscreen terminology to write documentation.
The new touchscreen mobile platforms require a language of their own to describe familiar procedural tasks.
Gone is the old-fashioned “click.” Welcome “tap.”
Goodbye “scroll.” Welcome “swipe.”
And “Rotate“!
Here is a representative list compiled by Microsoft:
(Click the image to access the full list)
Here is a list of new touchscreen action verbs:
tap, press and hold, pinch, stretch to zoom, shrink, swipe, swipe to select, slide from the edge, slide to scroll, slide to rearrange, rotate.
Are you ready for the brave new touchscreen world of mobile documentation?
MORE INFO
| The Emerging Touchscreen Terminology |
| Writing for Mobile Platforms |
