Working with a Windows 7 Tablet

I've been working with a Windows 7 tablet for the past few weeks, an ASUS EP121 to be exact. Tablets or slates depending on what you prefer to call them are very trendy at the moment, especially the likes of the iPad. But I wanted something that I felt might be more practical for my own circumstances, which meant that a tablet with Windows 7 on it was a necessity.

The EP121 is not only multi-touch capable but also has a Wacom digitizer built-in which means that I can use a 'pen' as well as my fingers to interact with it. It also comes with a BlueTooth keyboard which could be carried around with it if required, and since it has a couple of USB ports I could plug a mouse into it if I so desired. So with the keyboard I can use it as an ordinary PC on my desk and work with it in that way, but the touch screen gives it much more flexibility than that!

But before we get carried away we need a reality check. Using Windows 7 with your fingers isn't the easiest experience in the world, in fact using touch is a bit of a dogs dinner depending on what you are doing. The problem, as many commentators have pointed out, is that Windows is designed for the precision pointing that you get with a mouse which means that using a finger can be hit & miss. It mostly responds if you touch a link for instance, but when using something like a tree view which does require precise pointing it can be difficult to the point of total frustration, but then the EP121 does come with a precision pointing device, the pen, which is it's saving grace. It's not perfect but is useable, and the hand writing recognition means that data input can be more rapid than you might think.

So why did I choose a Windows tablet rather than an iPad or Android device? Simple, I wanted to run my own software on it, which I wouldn't have been able to do with either of the other devices. This means that I've installed ConvallisCRM on it and given that that means SQL Server 2008 Express is also installed I've also installed my own Cattle management software, and so I've finally got a device that I can take anywhere, even on the farm (something that was always impractical with a laptop).

I also wanted to stop lugging my 17" laptop plus a notebook around to meetings. Quite often I'd take the laptop and only need to take notes, or not take it and find I needed it. Since I got the tablet I've only taken it to meetings, since ConvallisCRM is installed on it I can use it for demonstrations. But the pen allows me to use it for taking notes. Personally, I prefer using OneNote which is part of Microsoft Office 2010, it allows me to take notes, record the conversation (if needed), draw, highlight text plus other useful features. I think it's what makes the tablet a practical device to take to a meeting.

Finally, it's been clear to me for a while that touch interfaces are going to become a much more important way of interacting with computers. As a software developer I realised a while ago that I need to learn the differences. One of the reasons Windows 7 doesn't work well on a tablet is because all of the applications & utilities bundled with it are designed for the mouse (as I mentioned earlier).

An applications user interface needs to be adapted to work well with touch, that means that as a developer I need to use a touch device myself so that I can then adapt the software I write to work well with a touch screen. In the few weeks I've been using it I've already had several interesting insights which have gone into an experimental application that I've written. I've had to make buttons and fonts bigger so that it's easier to click or select something, but the biggest difference is that I've had to rethink how data is selected. That experiment is ongoing but already it seems that the adaptations will also work well with a mouse and appear to improve data entry speed, so it could well help us to improve our interfaces in general.