As a developer of line-of-business applications, I was thrilled by the Microsoft Surface announcement. The details of Windows 8 and the tablet form factor have been common knowledge for several months, but what truly excited me the most was the first-class treatment afforded to real hardware keyboards in the design of Microsoft Surface.
Don’t fix it…
Hardware keyboards are a key requirement for efficient interaction with computers. Sure, we have had the mouse, various pens, graphics tablets, voice, gestures, and touch screens come along since the introduction of the humble QWERTY keyboard over a century ago.
However, none has proven as efficient for content creation as the keyboard. So, just as the fanciest cars of today run on four wheels, as did the 1908 Ford Model T, the familiar hardware keyboard continues to be the human computer interaction model of choice.
Why fix something when it is not broken? Innovation does not always have to be driven by wholesale reinvention.
