Consumers love new gadgets. Whether it be digital cameras, MP3 players, cell phones, GPS devices, media players, or new theater systems, consumers love it. Technology companies are quick to develop new products to satify the craving by consumers yearning for new products. The success of Apple's iPhone which allows users to navigate menus and applications by a capacitive multi touch screen has revolutionized the way consumers interact with products. As we all know in the design industry "less is more". Twenty years ago the mantra for product design was to add another button to increase functionality. Today many designers practice what we call "button scrub". This discipline follows the idea to simplify or reduce the number of buttons on a product by assigning multifunctional behaviors to a select group of units. For example on a remote control instead of having two separate buttons: one for "Play" and one for "Pause" one could assign both behaviors to the same button since one action cancels the other one out. The same idea applies to pressing one button to turn the device on and pressing and holding the same button reboots the device. You get the idea.

We have barely touched the surface of functionality that can be designed into consumer products.

Today there are many multi touch features waiting to be designed into new consumer products.

Apple has emerged as the leader in new ways to navigate.

+ Tapping (single, double, triple)
+ Pinch
+ Finger Scroll
+ Swipe
+ Multitouch Gestures

The same is true for capacitive multi touch devices. One swipe to the right might turn a page forward, a swipe to the left can go back to a previous page. The number of taps on a screen can offer more functionality without increasing physical buttons. These multifunctional actions can enlarge, activate, cancel, play or pause your media. The power of the consumer is in their hands.