Designing for low-latency direct-touch input

Software designed for direct-touch interfaces often utilize a metaphor of direct physical manipulation of pseudo "real-world" objects. However, current touch systems typically take 50-200ms to update the display in response to a physi-cal touch action. Utilizing a high performance touch de-monstrator, subjects were able to experience touch latencies ranging from current levels down to about 1ms. Our tests show that users greatly prefer lower latencies, and noticea-ble improvement continued well below 10ms. This level of performance is difficult to achieve in commercial compu-ting systems using current technologies. As an alternative, we propose a hybrid system that provides low-fidelity visu-al feedback immediately, followed by high-fidelity visuals at standard levels of latency.