In our main meeting room I noticed this panel on the wall:
This is the interface panel that controls the microphone and speakers that are hardwired into the room. I thought it was interesting that the interface had a custom label on it reading: "Touch Screen Gently". I assumed it was there because the resort had problems in the past with guests pushing too hard on the screen and breaking it.
When I have used a touchscreen similar to this one in the past I can remember trying to push hard on the screen if at first it did not react. I think I was blending my mental model of pushing an actual physical button that doesn't work with my model of a touchscreen that doesn't work. When I push harder on a physical button that doesn't seem to work, sometimes the button loosens up or it just needed a firmer push. This process obviously does not work for touchscreens. Even if I push harder to get a "button" to work on the touchscreen nothing will happen if that function is not working correctly or not mapped to perform the function I think it should.
Even though most of the users know pushing harder will not produce any different result, we still try to because we are applying our mental model of physical button pushing. I think the label on this interface is addressing this mental model mix-up and trying to prevent damage to the touchscreen. I wonder how this insight could be incorporated into the design of touchscreens similar to this one?
