Fast, faster, fastest | Touch makes everybody an expert | Compact and handy |
Durable and easy to clean | When ease of use is required | Applications

Why is touch THE perfect input device?

In the past, touchscreens were an exotic, expensive interface for high-tech applications like air traffic control and controlling nuclear power plants. Not anymore! Companies across a broad spectrum of industries have successfully harnessed the power of touch for a wide variety of applications. Yet, the essential benefits provided by touch technology remain unchanged.

Fast, faster, fastest

Touchscreens provide fast access to any and all types of digital media, with no text-bound interface getting in the way. It takes time for the user to grab a mouse or use a keyboard or trackball and coordinate it with what needs to be activated on the display. Faster input can mean better customer service in restaurants, hotels, movie theatres, and retail stores. In other cases, such as in-vehicle control or security equipment, being one second faster could make all the difference.

Touch makes everybody an expert

Everyone intuitively reaches out for what he wants. Using touch is just as simple: you just point at what you want. Although some people still shy away from computer keyboards and mice, there is no hesitation when they can just touch a screen. Your target users will feel comfortable that they cannot “do anything wrong” and will instinctively understand how to use the interface, reducing or eliminating training requirements. Whether it’s a person consulting a kiosk, a worker controlling an industrial process, a nurse entering a patient’s information or a waiter entering an order, touchscreen systems make everyone an “expert user” from the first touch.

Compact and handy

Space is valuable, so you want to use it as efficiently as possible. Touchmonitors ensure that no space - on the desktop or elsewhere - is wasted, as the input device is completely integrated into the display. Flat LCD touchmonitors help save even more space. And perhaps best of all, there are no wires in front of the monitor to get tangled, damaged or gather dust.

Durable and easy to clean

A touchscreen is made out of glass or a similar hard-coated surface. So it’s easy to clean and therefore extremely well suited for the typical environments found in restaurants, hospitals, and the food and pharmaceutical industries. All of Elo’s technologies can be used with gloves, which is great for applications where hygiene is particularly important or where temperature or workplace safety rules require the use of gloves. Moreover, we offer touchscreen systems that are not affected by dirt, dust, grease, or liquids. They are even rugged enough to stand up to harsh environments where keyboards and mice often get damaged.

When ease of use is required

Touchscreen-based systems virtually eliminate errors because users select from clearly defined menus. The information on the screen at one time is limited in number and options, thus providing step-by-step, fail-safe sequences to guide the user through complex procedures. This greatly simplifies medical diagnostics applications, for example, where voluminous databases need to be accessed quickly and easily.

Touchscreens are also useful in simplifying process control applications involving a large number of buttons or switches, and for applications where system contents require protection from unauthorized entry. In the retail environment, touch-based POS systems improve the returns and refunds process by cutting down the time it takes a customer to return merchandise, and improve loss-prevention management. Touch is such a naturally easy interface to use, it effectively reduces training time, thus keeping costs down.

Applications

Touch technologies can be used in virtually any application, and the list of examples is only limited by your imagination. Common touchscreen applications include:

	Point-of-Sale terminals
	Point-of-Information kiosks
	In-store e-commerce
	Multimedia marketing
	Electronic catalogues
	ATMs
	Banking/financial transactions
	Industrial machine control
	Medical equipment
	Office equipment
	Gaming, lottery and amusement
	Ticket sales
	Interactive payphones
	Handheld computers
	In-vehicle and in-flight applications