F@stCompany has published a list of about 20 "Killer Apps for Microsoft Surface" which is interesting but highly subjective.Personally, I judge multi-touch applications on three criteria Utility, Design, Aesthetics. If it fails any one of these tests (which are also pretty subjective) than its not a very good application. Most multi-touch applications will do well in one or two areas but few succeed in terms of all three.
Utility is the quality of usefulness of the application. Even a leisure application can be useful, but its use must also be sustainable. In other words, if people get board with it after five minutes its has low utility. Another aspect of utility is whether or not the application accomplishes the task its designed for. For example, if the Surface application is a logistics application does it really offer any advantage over using a desktop computer?
Design refers to the layout and interaction model. Specifically, does the application provide an interaction model that encourages use and discovery? Of the three criteria this is perhaps the least subjective. Either you can easily interact with a Surface application or you cannot.
Aesthetics is the beauty of the application. A Surface application should be beautiful as well as useful and well designed. It should draw people in and get them excited and its should maintain a positive experience over time.
Now judging Surface applications that you have not actually interacted with, but have only seen from a video, is a bit like judging the quality of a movie from its trailer. That said, even movie trailers tell us something about the movie in terms of script, direction, acting, cinematography, etc.
In a future post I'll show examples of Surface applications that excel in Utility, Design and Aesthetics.
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