Gestures You Need To Know To Operate Your Touchscreen Device

If you have only recently purchased a touch-screen device, you may need to get used to the way in which you use your fingers (better referred to as gesturing) to access the various apps and elements on the device. Familiarize yourself with the various touchscreen gestures you need to know to access things quickly and easily on your smartphone or tablet device.

Gestures You Need To Know To Operate Your Touchscreen Device

Tapping

Tapping is the application of the tip of the fingers on the screen in a quick and firm manner. Here are a few pointers when you use the Tap gesture.

• Remove your fingers immediately after touching the screen
• Never tap the screen with your fingernails.
• Don’t press down what you’re tapping.
• Don’t wait for a response when you tap.
• Don’t linger on the gesture.

Swiping

Swiping is a quick movement across the screen from right to left or left to right. You must swipe lightly across the screen and must not pull heavily, but just skim across the surface of the screen to do it correctly.

Flicking

Flicking involves a super quick vertical swipe across the screen. You ideally flick the screen when you have a long list, page or document and need to scroll a lot to get to the top or bottom of the page. Flicking should also be done lightly, and the quicker your flick action, the faster you scroll up or down a page.  Flicking a screen toward the top of the screen is also called throwing.

Drag & Drop

Slowly scrolling up and down a list, document, or web page by sliding your fingertip along
the surface is referred to as dragging. You can drag and drop items using the following procedure.

1. Tap and hold the item. You will notice that the item has the appearance of one that is selected.

2. Drag and drop it.

Pinching

Pinching involves placing two fingers on the screen and moving them. You pinch the screen either to zoom in to increase the size of items on the screen or zoom out to decrease the size of items that you zoomed out. To zoom in pinch out, that is move the fingers away from each other, or double tap the screen. To zoom out, inch in, that is, move the fingers towards each other.

Theses are probably gestures you are familiar with if you’ve been using the touchscreen device for awhile. But if you’re a newbie I hope you find these gestures useful.