I’m continuing to plug away on my new work computer, a Lenovo X220T Tablet PC. I’m thoroughly enjoying this tablet, which I’ll continue to share more about later. The X220T features a Wacom capacitive touch and active digitizer. As most folks know, Windows 7 isn’t the most touch friendly OS in the world, so Lenovo tried to help them out a bit by including a touch friendly program launcher called SimpleTap.
The interface is easily kicked off by touching a round icon that stays hidden on the side of screen. The SimpleTap icon can easily be moved to any side of the screen by simply holding down the icon and dragging it. After pressing the SimpleTap icon, a screen of commonly used utilities pops up: volume control, screen brightness, camera control, rotation, and more. The icons can be easily moved around, as well as quickly reorganized into a grid. In addition to these included touch friendly icons, existing programs like OneNote, Word, Evernote, etc can be added. It is clear that Lenovo spent a great deal of effort designing this new launcher utility as many of the controls are designed for touch, but they stopped about 40% through the effort. Instead of improving the touch functionality of Windows 7, they highlighted just how bad it is by sticking with the traditional Windows forms approach which results in difficult to scroll lists, small target areas for choosing programs, traditional drop downs, and more. It feels like a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde approach to user interface design. Checkout the gallery of screenshots below.
This is why Microsoft and their partners continue to get hammered on the user experience front. During a time when the battle for eyeballs and fingers couldn’t be more intense, I expected Lenovo to finish the job – not highlight their deficiencies.
I have to say that I seldom have a problem navigating Win7 by touch. I’ll occasionally miss a target, but that’s about it.
I haven’t even bothered to increase the size of any controls.
Right now, my biggest complaint is: Why won’t my TC1100 close this window?!?? I… keep… stabbing… the… X… with… my… finger!
What?
Oh. Nevermind…
Hello:
Would you have any idea on how to troubleshoot simple tap? I upgraded my x200 from Vista business to Win 7 and per procedure installed pertinent drivers and apps from Lenovo. The pen works perfectly fine as before but simple tap simply would not recognize my fingers. Any Idea on how to fix this?
thanks
You might have the touch settings turned off. I’d suggest right clicking it with your mouse and choosing settings. Besides that dialogue, I’m not sure what the other settings are. Good luck.
[...] Lenovo’s SimpleTap is slow to load and doesn’t offer a consistent user experience across the application. Read more about it here. [...]
The problem is that you and most media pundits don’t seem to understand HOW to use Windows 7′s touch features. For starters you do realize that the Windows dialog that you’re showing is easy to switch to a view that’s FAR more finger friendly? The lists that you complain about a finger dragable as well.
It’s very easy to setup Simple Tap if you know what you’re doing. I’d suggest you do some research and perhaps hit some forums and read up a bit.
Heatlesssun
I have been using windows touch for as long as it has been out, thank you very much. I have written and posted those research articles and forum topics…a media pundit I am not.
End users should not need to make those changes. Simpletap was almost there. They just got told to get it out the door before they cold finish designing it the way it should have been.
There is a difference between the user changing an option and something not working well. The option dialogs do work well with touch. Yes I can understand that the UI is inconsistent but the option dialogs are touch friendly.
Hello,
my SimpleTap utility does not response to my tap/touch at all. Any idea what to try to turn it on? The program seems to be running ok thought.
Thanks
Lenovo X61 Tablet_: And I also can’t seem to get the Buttons to work either!?. Download after Uninstall, and Back to Download…. thing is Id really like to see this app work!….. ?
[...] piece of potential crapware floated to the surface: SimpleTap. For my purposes, it amounted to another interface that I needed to learn, in order to do what I already knew how to do. Given the option of [...]