Ken, Sorry if my posts run a little long for you, but I'd rather address the facts fully rather than give half-answers. My response to your post: (quotes taken from your post) Ken said: track ball. My personal experience is that my fingers dont relate well to pushing a button with no tactile feedback, My reply: Part of the job of designing touch screen exhibit software is to provide this feedback using 3-d buttons which depress when touched, or other visual feedback like highlighting selected options and deliberately creating a delay before the next screen is displayed so that the visitor registers their input was accepted. You can also use a sound card and put an audible click or other sound to provide tactile feedback. Ken said: that cursors/pointers don't track well with touch screens, and that because of this touch screens don't interact well with off the shelf software. My reply: Cursor/pointers aren't used with a touch screen. In off the shelf software their purpose is to povide a reference point to let the user know where the next click action will take place, in touch screen _exhibit_ software, you touch the exact point you want to select. Your finger is the pointer. My question would be why would a museum go to the trouble to carefully design exhibits using the principles of design with focus on their educational mission for interactive/static exhibits then run down to Egghead software for exhibits using a computer. Touch screens don't work well with off the shelf software because you need a larger area for a finger than a mouse cursor. Which takes me back to a point in a previous post on the part the user interface plays in fufillling the educational role of the exhibit. If you use a touch screen on software that was designed for it, it requires less concentration than using a mouse any day. Where do you want your visitors focusing their attention? Ken said: Also, it is my belief that very few people have extensive experience with a touch screen, whereas almost every person under 35 has played a video game that has a trackball. My reply: I never said that people were experienced with touch screens I said that, from birth, people learn to point and touch. If you ever tried to play a video game with a mouse or trackball, you were probably frustrated because these games are usually designed to be used with a joystick. And just because "almost every person under 35" has played one of these games that doesn't mean they enjoyed the experience. Part of playing these games is learning how to use the mouse/trackball/joystick. The design principles that apply to exhibit software are not the design principles used for game development. (I would love to elaborate on that). Also, what about the people over 35. There are more old people in the US than young people. Ken said: Finally, there is no rule that says that you can't have both. Macintosh computers easily support multiple input devices all working simultaneously. You can have a touch screen as well as a trackball both plugged into the same ADB port, thereby giving your users a choice. My reply: I prefer to try to simplify the visitors interaction with an exhibit (depending on the exhibit). I think that if you stuck both on a computer you would confuse many people. PC's also have no trouble handling multiple input devices. The systems I deliver use a touch screen for the public and have a keyboard/trackball (not publicly accessable) for a maintenance interface. Ken, It seems that most of your comments reflect a bias towards using off the shelf software in museum exhibits. The only program you mentioned specifically was Netscape. If a client came to me and asked for an internet access station, I might recommend a mouse/trackball just so that the station could run either Netscape or Explorer as these are the standards for Web browsers and would be able to display many of the special graphics and features that are becomming common in many web sites. BTW, I hope you are running Netscape in "kiosk" mode. FYI, there is an internet browser developed for touch screens with oversized navigation buttons for fingers. It is more secure than Navigator in "kiosk" mode. For exhibits other than Web stations... I find it difficult to see how you can just buy an off the shelf program that really delivers the information you want in a public-friendly manner. Many museums/science centers have specific regional missions and off the shelf software will not deliver this kind of information as it is written for a mass market. There are also many design assumptions applied to off the shelf software that make it unsuitable for a public-access _exhibit_ kiosk. The functional word here is exhibit. If you are using this type of software in a classroom resource center, then off the shelf software will probably work okay. Mark C. Vang Freya Ventures