Google adds touch-friendly Chrome features in latest test version
Google appears to be readying a number of touch-friendly features for its Chrome browser. In the latest nightly Canary build, a new slide-to-navigate feature has been added that lets you swipe left or right to go backwards and forwards on web pages.
Context & Ripple Effects
Chrome had already explored touch input with an onscreen keyboard in 2011, while a May report described touch-screen work being built into Chrome. The Canary addition moves that effort from text entry toward gesture-based page navigation, using the browser’s test channel to trial a touch-native browsing behavior.
First-order effects
- Canary users can navigate backward and forward through web pages with left- and right-swipe gestures, reducing reliance on visible browser controls for that task.
Second-order effects
- Google gains a test-bed for whether gesture navigation belongs in Chrome’s broader touch interface, extending the earlier touch-screen Chrome work beyond keyboard input.
Third-order effects
- If Chrome continues to replace mouse-oriented controls with direct gestures, browser interface design will increasingly treat touch as a primary input method rather than an add-on.
The trend: Chrome’s interface is being adapted from discrete controls and keyboard input toward touch-first gestures for everyday browsing.