User experiences...

Today, I was at Mountain Equipment Co-op (mec.com) buying some last minute provisions for my hiking/camping/climbing trip (a summer sleeping bag and Clif bars). It was during lunch hour so the checkout line was long and slow moving. I let my eye wander over to a computer screen that you can use to search the online catalog and order stuff from the mail order department. The flat screen was embedded in a wood frame and part of a wall where you could post notices. From a distance it looked like a touch screen. A person walked up and started to touch the screen thinking that it was a touch screen. They would double-click on an icon and nothing would happen. The mouse point was visible on the screen and they tried to move the pointer by dragging their finger across the screen and nothing would happen. It was sort of fun to watch while killing time in the queue. The problem is it wasn’t a touch screen. There was mouse and keyboard on a shelf underneath the screen but it was so low that most folks didn’t see or ignored it. Just as they were ready to bolt, a stranger nearby pointed to the mouse and keyboard and suggested that perhaps these were would be useful. I was at the cash by this point so didn’t see what happened next.