Boxing will knock down touchscreen based UI

TouchScreen promises on the rise !

Tablet PC, microsoft windows 8, smartphones are all there to make us believe in the future of multitouch device. My geeks friends buy and make huge surface. And I won't follow them.

Soon, some marketing people will think : let's revolution the «User Experience» and make the touchscreen a basic must have input, thus making you buy new hardware.

Let's see what boxing can make us understand about this crap

I actually met  Steve Hérélius and his trainer in Miami, and I love these guys. They have lighten my found memories of when I was boxing myself (I was a very average french boxer though), and they speak so well of boxing, and they are so into it, that it inspired me. 

And you know what, when you have boxed on a ring, you actually know touchscreens can only be used for a very short time. 

I already talked about the «gorilla arm» as stated by Palo Alto Parc while investigating the future of User Interface, and I think nothing disruptive really has emerged since this time. But, stupid people think that old facts cannot be real today. 

However with boxing you can understand, and experiment by yourself why touchscreens will never be an adequate input device for actual human beings.    

Higher your guard ! Higher your guard ! 

You may have heard these words during combat, you may even have wondered why an athlete with arms the size of my thighs have a tendency to let his guard fall.

Well, keeping your guard high is a straining activity. Even if the couple is less than if you have you have arms used like with a multitouch screen, they tend to fall. 

These are well trained athlete, trained for stamina on 12 times 3 minutes and they have difficulties keeping their arms up, and what they do is less straining than using a touch screen.

You may say, tonicity and stamina being antagonists it is a side effect of their training, and maybe average persons are better suited? 

Well, let me propose you an experiment

Do your jogging and run with a guard the same as a boxer. 

Then do your running and every 5 minutes keep your arms stretched out for 5 minutes.

First your arms will fall, and how much you train does not matter, it is strainful. 

Then, you'll notice the couple higher the strains. 

Finally, you'll understand how tough keeping your guard high is.

You think you are smarter cause you «lay you tablet on the table so it hurt less?»

Well, boxing and long term injuries also will tell you something: you are a dumbass. 

Your  cervical vertebra  are strained, resulting in a long term use in neck pain. 

Your head is heavy some kilograms which is proportionally heavier than most animals   you thus induce a strong couple when tilting your head on your spine. 

Conclusion

I am an old geezer, I think old simple truth remains true as long as we cannot prove over-wise, and that touchsreen and tactile surface will never ever more than a gadget since their use can only be casual, and any stupid marketers or geeks pushing a touchscreen based user interface for long term use deserve to be held responsible (and accountable on his money) for the harm that will occurs to the users, since there is no doubt it is one of the most stupid idea in UX these last years.