Interact 360

This will be resolved later in the blog, but one revision of the hardware may be required.

Like the iPhone, this product should be able to rotate a full 360.

If we look at Microsoft Surface, (read my design blog on it here) the interaction of the touchscreen is different because:

• It doesn’t rotate, or behaves like a coffee table (i.e. multiple users can grab and play with multiple items, so the interface has to be viewed from ANY angle and still be intuitive.
• certain items and interactions have only one orientation, e.g. watching a movie, reading a book. (one user can do this, but the other user at the opposite side, will not be able to enjoy the experience in the same way (if at all!)

Because the MacProTouch is more of a personal item, I am taking the assumption that one or more people is facing it the same way.

Another thing to note about rotation is peripheral placement. For say firewires and monitor cables, a full 360 rotation is unlikely. However for the two most common peripherals, a mouse and headphones, placement is important to allow for a full 360 experience.

You'll note that the headphone/mic jack and usb cable for the mouse is always on the opposite side across the horizontal access. This is handy if the user wants to rotate for left handed use.

For vertical alignments, the headphone jack is either at the top or bottom. A usb has been added to the peripheral sockets at the back, this way the mouse is to the side of the macprotouch at all times.

It should be noted, that the rotation of the interface only works when the tablet is on some sort of slope, but typically a user may rotate it to the orientation they want to work with, and then lie the tablet flat on a surface, thereby keeping it that orientation.