Back-of-device interaction allows creating very small touch devices

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore how to add pointing input capabilities to very small screen devices. On first sight, touchscreens seem to allow for particular compactness, because they integrate input and screen into the same physical space. The opposite is true, however, because the user's fingers occlude contents and prevent precision.

We argue that the key to touch-enabling very small devices is to use touch on the device backside. In order to study this, we have created a 2.4" prototype device; we simulate screens smaller than that by masking the screen. We present a user study in which participants completed a pointing task successfully across display sizes when using a back-of device interface. The touchscreen-based control condition (enhanced with the shift technique), in contrast, failed for screen diagonals below 1 inch. We present four form factor concepts based on back-of-device interaction and provide design guidelines extracted from a second user study.

REFERENCES

• 1: Pär-Anders Albinsson , Shumin Zhai, High precision touch screen interaction, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA [doi>10.1145/642611.642631]
• 2: Azuma, R.T. (1997). A Survey of Augmented Reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 6(4) (August 1997). pp. 355--385.
• 3: Patrick Baudisch , Alexander Zotov , Edward Cutrell , Ken Hinckley, Starburst: a target expansion algorithm for non-uniform target distributions, Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces, May 28-30, 2008, Napoli, Italy [doi>10.1145/1385569.1385592]
• 4: William Buxton, A three-state model of graphical input, Proceedings of the IFIP TC13 Third Interational Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, p.449-456, August 27-31, 1990
• 5: William Buxton , Ralph Hill , Peter Rowley, Issues and techniques in touch-sensitive tablet input, Proceedings of the 12th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.215-224, July 1985
• 6: Tovi Grossman , Ravin Balakrishnan, The bubble cursor: enhancing target acquisition by dynamic resizing of the cursor's activation area, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 02-07, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA [doi>10.1145/1054972.1055012]
• 7: Hiraoka, S., Miyamoto, I., Tomimatsu, K. Behind Touch, a Text Input Method for Mobile Phones by The Back and Tactile Sense Interface. Information Processing Society of Japan, Interaction 2003. p. 131--138.
• 8: Masaki Iwabuchi , Yasuaki Kakehi , Takeshi Naemura, LimpiDual touch: interactive limpid display with dual-sided touch sensing, ACM SIGGRAPH 2008 posters, August 11-15, 2008, Los Angeles, California [doi>10.1145/1400885.1400978]
• 9: Paul Kabbash , William A. S. Buxton, The “prince” technique: Fitts' law and selection using area cursors, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.273-279, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States [doi>10.1145/223904.223939]
• 10: Jean-Baptiste Labrune , Wendy Mackay, Telebeads: social network mnemonics for teenagers, Proceedings of the 2006 conference on Interaction design and children, June 07-09, 2006, Tampere, Finland [doi>10.1145/1139073.1139092]
• 11: Kevin A. Li , Patrick Baudisch , Ken Hinckley, Blindsight: eyes-free access to mobile phones, Proceeding of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2008, Florence, Italy [doi>10.1145/1357054.1357273]
• 12: Michael McGuffin , Ravin Balakrishnan, Acquisition of expanding targets, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Changing our world, changing ourselves, April 20-25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA [doi>10.1145/503376.503388]
• 13: David Merrill , Jeevan Kalanithi , Pattie Maes, Siftables: towards sensor network user interfaces, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, February 15-17, 2007, Baton Rouge, Louisiana [doi>10.1145/1226969.1226984]
• 14: Olwal, A., Feiner S. (2003) Rubbing the Fisheye: precise touch-screen interaction with gestures and fisheye views. In Conf. Companion. UIST'03, pp. 83--84.
• 15: R. L. Potter , L. J. Weldon , B. Shneiderman, Improving the accuracy of touch screens: an experimental evaluation of three strategies, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.27-32, May 15-19, 1988, Washington, D.C., United States [doi>10.1145/57167.57171]
• 16: Gonzalo Ramos , Matthew Boulos , Ravin Balakrishnan, Pressure widgets, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.487-494, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985692.985754]
• 17: Xiangshi Ren , Shinju Moriya, Improving selection performance on pen-based systems: a study of pen-based interaction for selection tasks, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), v.7 n.3, p.384-416, Sept. 2000 [doi>10.1145/355324.355328]
• 18: Anne Roudaut , Stéphane Huot , Eric Lecolinet, TapTap and MagStick: improving one-handed target acquisition on small touch-screens, Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces, May 28-30, 2008, Napoli, Italy [doi>10.1145/1385569.1385594]
• 19: Carsten Schwesig , Ivan Poupyrev , Eijiro Mori, Gummi: a bendable computer, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.263-270, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985692.985726]
• 20: Andrew Sears , Ben Shneiderman, High precision touchscreens: design strategies and comparisons with a mouse, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, v.34 n.4, p.593-613, April 1991 [doi>10.1016/0020-7373(91)90037-8]
• 21: Siek, K.A., Rogers, Y., and Connelly, K.H. Fat Finger Worries: How Older and Younger Users Physically Interact with PDAs. In Proc. INTERACT'05, pp. 267--280.
• 22: Masanori Sugimoto , Keiichi Hiroki, HybridTouch: an intuitive manipulation technique for PDAs using their front and rear surfaces, Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services, September 12-15, 2006, Helsinki, Finland [doi>10.1145/1152215.1152243]
• 23: John C. Tang , Scott L. Minneman, VideoDraw: a video interface for collaborative drawing, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Empowering people, p.313-320, April 01-05, 1990, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/97243.97302]
• 24: Daniel Vogel , Patrick Baudisch, Shift: a technique for operating pen-based interfaces using touch, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 28-May 03, 2007, San Jose, California, USA [doi>10.1145/1240624.1240727]
• 25: Daniel Wigdor , Clifton Forlines , Patrick Baudisch , John Barnwell , Chia Shen, Lucid touch: a see-through mobile device, Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, October 07-10, 2007, Newport, Rhode Island, USA [doi>10.1145/1294211.1294259]
• 26: Daniel Wigdor , Darren Leigh , Clifton Forlines , Samuel Shipman , John Barnwell , Ravin Balakrishnan , Chia Shen, Under the table interaction, Proceedings of the 19th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, October 15-18, 2006, Montreux, Switzerland [doi>10.1145/1166253.1166294]
• 27: Jacob O. Wobbrock , Brad A. Myers , Htet Htet Aung, The performance of hand postures in front- and back-of-device interaction for mobile computing, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.66 n.12, p.857-875, December, 2008 [doi>10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.03.004]
• 28: Koji Yatani , Kurt Partridge , Marshall Bern , Mark W. Newman, Escape: a target selection technique using visually-cued gestures, Proceeding of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2008, Florence, Italy [doi>10.1145/1357054.1357104]
• 29: Robert Zeleznik , Timothy Miller , Andrew Forsberg, Pop through mouse button interactions, Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, November 11-14, 2001, Orlando, Florida [doi>10.1145/502348.502384]
• 30: Ken Hinckley , Francois Guimbretiere , Patrick Baudisch , Raman Sarin , Maneesh Agrawala , Ed Cutrell, The springboard: multiple modes in one spring-loaded control, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, April 22-27, 2006, Montréal, Québec, Canada [doi>10.1145/1124772.1124801]
• 31: Yang Li , Ken Hinckley , Zhiwei Guan , James A. Landay, Experimental analysis of mode switching techniques in pen-based user interfaces, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 02-07, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA [doi>10.1145/1054972.1055036]
• 32: Zelaznik, H.N., Mone, S., McCabe, G.P. and Thaman, C. (1988) Role of temporal and spatial precision in determining the nature of the speed-accuracy trade-off in aimed-hand movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14 (2), 221--230.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Input devices and strategies (e.g., mouse, touchscreen)

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.4 INPUT/OUTPUT AND DATA COMMUNICATIONS
      B.4.2 Input/Output Devices

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
back-of-device interaction, input devices, lucidtouch, mobile devices, nanotouch, pointing, touch