Glossary A–ZLetter M
Multi-touch
Multi-touch is the ability of a touchscreen to detect several touches at the same time and tell them apart.
Only then are gestures such as zooming with two fingers or rotating possible. Data sheets state the number of touch points that are detected simultaneously.
In everyday use of public screens, a single touch is often enough: someone selecting something on an information terminal just taps. Multi-touch becomes important when maps or images need to be enlarged, when several people work at a large screen or touch table at the same time, for example in museums, showrooms or meeting rooms, or when games are played with several hands.
The hardware alone is not enough: the operating system, browser or application must also evaluate multi-touch. For kiosk applications, it can make sense to switch off gestures such as zooming deliberately, so that nobody shifts the view and cannot find their way back. Operators should define which gestures the application needs and test the screen with the finished application rather than with demo software.