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On mobile devices, I used to be (maybe still am), a physical keyboard fanboy and touchscreen poo-pooer.  Something about touchscreens never felt right–they seemed very slow and unresponsive. The harder I pressed, the more deliberate I tried to be, the more frustrated I became. Go back to a physical keyboard though, and I’m back at home, speedily clicking and typing away. 

Then it dawned on me. Page 43 of the Palm Pre User Guide that is.  This one idea can change your philosophy about touchscreens:
“Tap: Tap with the tip of the finger, fast and firmly, and then immediately lift your fingertip off the screen. Don’t bear down on what you’re tapping. Don’t wait for a response; the response comes after you lift your finger. Don’t linger on the gesture; a tap takes a split second to do.”

Specifically “the response comes after you lift your finger”.  That’s it.  That is the difference between physical keyboards and touchscreens: when you expect the response.

Physical Keyboards
With a regular keyboard, each key is a switch. The response you expect happens when you press the key down–when the key makes contact with some membrane below it and completes a circuit.  It doesn’t matter if you press the key for .1 seconds or 1 second, once that key goes down, something happens. Usually you’ll see the response before you’re even off the key and onto your next one.

Touchscreens
Like Palm printed in their User Guide, with a touchscreen, “the response comes after you lift your finger”. Compared to a physical keyboard, this is only a split-second difference, but it is the difference between expectations and frustrations.  The faster or harder you tap the touchscreen matters little–it’s knowing that the expected response comes after you release that tap, not mid-tap as in a physical keyboard.

It’s sort of like rhythm–some people tap their feet to beats 1 & 3, other people are tuned in to beats 2 & 4. If you’re a physical keyboard person, those new touchscreens just seem “off” somehow.  That’s because you’re focusing on the downbeat of your physical keyboard, when the touchscreen doesn’t respond until the upbeat.  All it takes in my opinion is to forget about the tap, and focus on the release.  You’ll learn to love that touchscreen.  Give it a shot.