Boston Globe, reporting on a new study done by Boston College:

“When consumers participating in the study reached out and touched an image on a touchscreen, the experience nearly rivaled their feelings of touching merchandise in a brick-and-mortar store, according to the measure of satisfaction used in the study.”

Astounding research and food for thought for any retailer who has a web presence but does not take advantage of apps. This is what makes smartphones and tablets so engaging – the experience of directly operating the things on screen is vastly more easy for normal people to comprehend than the abstraction of mice and pointers.