What is a touch screen?

A touch screen (or touch monitor) is a standard computer monitor that has been enhanced so that a user can touch the screen and have the computer respond. Their are a variety of different technologies made by several companies used to accomplish this. In order to utilize touch screen hardware, the computer it is attached to must run software and/or device drivers that know how to respond to the hardware. Touch screens are the most natural of all input devices - even children easily learn to operate computer systems by touch. However, software must be specifically designed for touch screen input to take the best advantage of the ease of use that can be attained. Device drivers are available for all of the major computer platforms including Microsoft Windows, IBM OS/2, Apple Mac OS, and a variety of UNIX systems. The typical GUI (graphical user interface) programs for these platforms, employ techniques like pull down menus. These work very well when you are using a mouse. Fingertips are much larger than the mouse cursor and make pull down menus cumbersome to use on touch screen systems. "Double clicking", another common GUI construct, is also awkward when using touch. Therefore, applications that wish to maximize the ease of use associated with touch screens needed to be designed with these limitations in mind.

Markets that commonly employ touch screens include Point-of-Sale, point-of-information (kiosks), industrial/process control, and gaming (lotteries and gambling). Widespread adoption of touch screen solutions has already occurred in the restaurant segment of point-of-sale and its usage is growing rapidly in the retail segment.