Everyone should be aware by now that mobile phones and tablets are taking over the world. The “normal computer” is no longer a desktop with a keyboard and mouse, but a touchscreen smartphone or tablet.
But we’ve just ended up with a new set of interaction problems, because touch is still quite new. We are still developing patterns of interaction, and we don’t really, in general, understand how touchscreens even work. All too often we make decisions based on anecdote, opinion, personal bias, hearsay and rumor.
This was underscored recently way with the launch of the iPhone 6 series. Many designers showed their focus on iOS and lack of rigor in process by panicking over how people will interact with the larger screen and hold a larger device. But we're scientists; we should demand proof and seek out information when it clearly already exists. On other platforms (Android, Windows Phone) large screen phones are becoming the norm so there’s data out there.
NO OR MOVE: Starting a few years ago I began to look at this research, and filled in the gap with several studies I performed myself or in coordination with others. I have found many absolute truths to be outdated or grounded in poor assumptions, but have come to useful, actionable conclusions about how people really hold and touch their phones and tablets.
NO OR MOVE: There are a handful of inter-related interactions, ergonomics considerations, or human behaviors that can be thought of as ten distinct guidelines for touchscreen design.
Possible: Rant a bit on SAGE. How it was the beginning of computing, how desktops are an aberration. Touch on trends, desktops falling, mobile taking over. "Normal computer" is now not just a mobile phone (with 7 billion in use in 2014) but a smartphone (2 billion in use at end of 2014, 1.4 billion desktops).
Maybe integrate some concepts here to explain why: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/07/the-social-history-of-the-smartphone.php
Misconceptions about touch, much like the slide about what is wrong but we know better now. Shorter, fewer answers (or in less detail): http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/03/common-misconceptions-about-touch.php