Touch screen design: the ideal button size

An MIT Touch Lab study of Human Fingertips to investigate the Mechanics of Tactile Sense found that the average width of the index finger is 1.6 to 2 cm (16 – 20 mm) for most adults. This converts to 45 – 57 pixels, which is wider than what most mobile guidelines suggest.

1. Designing for 34 / 44 pixels touch target (Windows Phone UI Design and Interaction Guide and iPhone Human Interface Guidelines)

Touch target 34 px


2. Designing for 57 pixels touch target (ergonomically correct)

Touch target finger 57px


3. Designing for 72 pixels touch target (Thumb correct)

Touch target 72px

Your complete gesture guide

For designers and touch users, here comes a great Touch gesture guide, courtesy of interaction designer LukeW. Thanks  for sharing.
Download here

Touch Gesture Reference Guide

 

The brand new Windows 8 metro interface

Here comes a good walkthrough of the pre-release version of Windows 8, if you have missed it. It’s an interesting example of how difficult it is to support both Touch and Pointer interaction mode on the same UI platform.