It can go both ways of course. The first edition of Norman’s classic ‘design of everyday things’ was 1988, and it’s interesting to read that book today and see how a lot of the hard problems he was discussing were completely solved by the advent of touchscreen interfaces (specifically, the ability to reconfigure the interface according to what tasks are relevant at that moment). Done right, touchscreens are a huge boon for usability (I mean, look at what the iphone did). Done poorly they’re a disaster, but that’s been true forever with UI design regardless of the tools at hand.
(I haven’t read the revised edition (2013) of Norman’s book, I guess he must address touchscreens)
(I haven’t read the revised edition (2013) of Norman’s book, I guess he must address touchscreens)