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Ultra-small touch screen devices tend to suffer from occlusion or the fat finger problem owing to their limited input area. A callout could solve these problems by displaying a copy of the occluded area in a non-occluded area. However, callout designs for ultra-small touch screen devices have not yet been explored in depth. In this study, we chose three design factors (each factor has two levels) from various factors and conducted an experiment to examine eight callout designs in the selection task for ultra-small touch screen devices. The results of our experiment matched the results from previous research; however, we also obtained results unique to ultra-small devices. The results showed that the selection speed was higher when the content of the callout was changed continuously, the error rate decreased when the content of the callout was changed continuously and a pointer was displayed to indicate the touched position within the callout, and the workload decreased when the content was changed continuously. Further, as a design factor, the position of the callout would not affect the selection performance.

We present our design exploration for re-thinking underlying principles of 3D modelling activity on multi-touch tablets for novice users, identifying some of usability problems that often hinder the user interaction. We introduce "1.2 hand input," a specific interaction technique that helps novice users to gain understanding and orientation in interacting with 3D space on a 2D screen, and we derive multiple UI artefacts and techniques that take advantage of the particular characteristics afforded by this technique: a clear separation between the actions of modelling an object and of changing the viewpoint, a reduction of hand occlusion while performing multi-touch interactions by extending the touchable areas around the object model, and an improved access to the user's action history by combining the concept of viewpoint change with past interaction sequences re-shaping how traditionally the undo and redo actions have been done in the modelling activity.

Interaction with head mounted displays is predominantly through use of additional controllers or the keyboard to initiate pointing, selections, and navigation. However, most modern head mounted displays have an orientation sensor to determine how the user's view should be displayed. There is the potential to use this sensor as an input mechanism. Our research explores a method of interaction using just head movements called Periphery Menus. These are menus triggered by looking quickly in predetermined directions to reveal a contextual menu from the periphery of a user's vision. We discuss a pilot study of this interaction technique, using a serious games approach to experimental testing. Experiment results indicated the interaction provided a successful, engaging, and repeatable experience.

The wide availability of touch-enabled devices is a unique opportunity for visualization research to invent novel techniques to fluently explore, analyse, and understand complex and large-scale data. In this paper, we introduce Scribble Query, a novel interaction technique for fluid freehand scribbling (casual drawing) on touch-enabled devices to support interactive querying in data visualizations. Inspired by the low-entry yet rich interaction of touch drawing applications, a Scribble Query can be created with a single touch stroke yet have the expressiveness of multiple brushes (a conventionally used interaction technique). We have applied the Scribble Query interaction technique in a multivariate visualization tool, deployed the tool with domain experts from five different domains, and conducted deployment studies with these domain experts on their utilization of multivariate visualization with Scribble Query. The studies suggest that Scribble Query has a low entry barrier facilitating easy adoption, casual and infrequent usage, and in one case, enabled live dissemination of findings by the domain expert to managers in the organization.

In this paper we demonstrate Orbits, a novel gaze interaction technique that accounts for both the reduced size of smart watch displays and the hands-free nature of conventional watches. Orbits combines graphical controls that display one or multiple targets moving on a circular path, with input that is provided by users as they follow any of the targets briefly with their eyes. This gaze input triggers the functionality associated with the followed target -- be it answering a call, playing a song or managing multiple notifications.

This study designed an interaction technique for transferring digital information between a wearable device and a touch panel device. To this end, we developed a prototype system, referred to as a User Body Interface (UBI), that enables easy bidirectional data transmission using a human body communication technique. As a proof of principle, we demonstrate how this system works during an image exchange scenario. Using the prototype UBI system, a user can transmit image data files bidirectionally between devices using only simple touch operations.

In this paper, we propose a new interaction technique, called NailSense, which allows users to control a mobile device by hovering and slightly bending/extending fingers behind the device. NailSense provides basic interactions equivalent to that of touchscreen interactions; 2-D locations and binary states (i.e., touch or released) are tracked and used for input, but without any need of touching on the screen. The proposed technique tracks the user's fingertip in real-time and triggers event on color change in the fingernail area. It works with conventional smartphone cameras, which means no additional hardware is needed for its utilization. This novel technique allows users to use mobile devices without occlusion which was a crucial problem in touchscreens, also promising extended interaction space in the air, on desktop, or in everywhere. This new interaction technique is tested with example applications: a drawing app and a web browser.

We present BackTap, an interaction technique that extends the input modality of a smartphone to add four distinct tap locations on the back case of a smartphone. The BackTap interaction can be used eyes-free with the phone in a user's pocket, purse, or armband while walking, or while holding the phone with two hands so as not to occlude the screen with the fingers. We employ three common built-in sensors on the smartphone (microphone, gyroscope, and accelerometer) and feature a lightweight heuristic implementation. In an evaluation with eleven participants and three usage conditions, users were able to tap four distinct points with 92% to 96% accuracy.

Warping the pointer across monitor bezels has previously been demonstrated to be both significantly faster and preferred to the standard mouse behavior when interacting across displays in homogeneous multi-monitor configurations. Complementing this work, we present a user study that compares the performance of four pointer-warping strategies, including a previously untested frame-memory placement strategy, in heterogeneous multi-monitor environments, where displays vary in size, resolution, and orientation. Our results show that a new frame-memory pointer warping strategy significantly improved targeting performance (up to 30% in some cases). In addition, our study showed that, when transitioning across screens, the mismatch between the visual and the device space has a significantly bigger impact on performance than the mismatch in orientation and visual size alone. For mouse operation in a highly heterogeneous multi-monitor environment, all our participants strongly preferred using pointer warping over the regular mouse behavior.

The interaction techniques that are used in tabletop groupware systems (such as pick-and-drop or pantograph) can affect the way that people collaborate. However, little is known about these effects, making it difficult for designers to choose appropriate techniques when building tabletop groupware. We carried out an exploratory study to determine how several different types of interaction techniques (pantograph, telepointers, radar views, drag-and-drop, and laser beam) affected coordination and awareness in two tabletop tasks (a game and a storyboarding activity). We found that the choice of interaction technique significantly affected coordination measures, performance measures, and preference - but that the effects were different for the two different tasks. Our study shows that the choice of tabletop interaction technique does indeed matter, and provides insight into how tabletop systems can better support group work.

This demonstration presents a new interaction technique on Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). We implement a fish-eye visualization of virtual keyboard. Each character close to the stylus is expanded to facilitate their selection.

The rapid increase in display sizes and resolutions has led to the re-emergence of many pen-based interaction systems like tabletop and wall display environments. Pointing in these environments is an important task, but techniques have not exploited the manipulation of control and display parameters to the extent seen in desktop environments. We have overcome these in the design of a new pen-based interaction technique -- Bubble Radar. Bubble Radar allows users to reach both specific targets and empty space, and supports dynamic switching between selecting and placing. The technique is based on combining the benefits of a successful pen-based pointing technique, the Radar View, with a successful desktop object pointing technique -- the Bubble Cursor. We tested the new technique in a user study and found that it was significantly faster than existing techniques, both for overall pointing and for targeting specific objects.

Accessing and manipulating occluded content in layered 2D drawings can be difficult. This paper characterizes a design space of techniques that facilitate access to occluded content. In addition, we introduce two new tools, Tumbler and Splatter, which represent unexplored areas of the design space. Finally, we present results of a study that contrasts these two tools against the traditional scene index used in most drawing applications. Results show that Splatter is comparable to and can be better than the scene index. Our findings allow us to understand the inherent design tradeoffs, and to identify areas for further improvement.

Ordinary tree widgets do not make it easy to browse all the nodes of the hierarchy, thus reducing the performances for discovering or retrieving an object of interest. This paper presents a new visualization and interaction technique that tries to solve this problem by using a fish eye representation, semantic zooming and an interaction technique that is derived from Control menus. This technique makes it possible to browse the entire hierarchy by using a limited amount of mouse gestures.

Although the 2D desktop metaphor has been the dominating paradigm of user interfaces for over two decades, 3D models of interaction are becoming more feasible due to advances in computer output hardware and software technology. However, conventional input devices such as a mouse or track-pad generally restrict direct manipulation interaction to a 2D paradigm. More sophisticated 3D input devices such data-gloves have been available for some time, but these tend to be expensive or restrictive in their use. In this paper we describe a simple and inexpensive single camera-based video input system which allows 3D interaction with existing computer application using bare hands.

Inter-object occlusion is inherent to 3D environments and is one of the challenges of using 3D instead of 2D computer graphics for information visualization. In this paper, we examine this occlusion problem by building a theoretical framework of its causes and components. As a result of this analysis, we present an interaction technique for view projection animation that reduces inter-object occlusion in 3D environments without modifying the geometrical properties of the objects themselves. The technique provides smooth on-demand animation between parallel and perspective projection modes as well as online manipulation of view parameters, allowing the user to quickly and easily adapt the view to avoid occlusion. A user study indicates that the technique significantly improves object discovery over normal perspective views. We have also implemented a prototype of the technique in the Blender 3D modeller.

This paper introduces a new type of interface for 3D drawings that improves the usability of gestural interfaces and augments typical command-based modeling systems. In our suggestive interface, the user gives hints about a desired operation to the system by highlighting related geometric components in the scene. The system then infers possible operations based on the hints and presents the results of these operations as small thumbnails. The user completes the editing operation simply by clicking on the desired thumbnail. The hinting mechanism lets the user specify geometric relations among graphical components in the scene, and the multiple thumbnail suggestions make it possible to define many operations with relatively few distinct hint patterns. The suggestive interface system is implemented as a set of suggestion engines working in parallel, and is easily extended by adding customized engines. Our prototype 3D drawing system, Chateau, shows that a suggestive interface can effectively support construction of various 3D drawings.

In this paper, we describe our investigation into user tolerance of recognition errors during hand gesture interactions with visual displays. The study is based on our proposed interaction model for investigating gesture based interactions, focusing on three elements: Interaction context, system performance and user goals. This Wizard of Oz experiment investigates how recognition system accuracy rates and task characteristics in both desktop and ubiquitous computing scenarios can influence user tolerance for gesture interactions. Results suggest that interaction context is a greater influence on user tolerance than system performance alone, where recognition error rates can potentially reach 40% before users will abandon gestures and use an alternate interaction mode in a ubiquitous computing scenario. Results also suggest that in a desktop scenario, traditional input methods are more appropriate than gestures.

This paper describes the elements required by a computerized system to evaluate the performance of various interaction techniques for travel in virtual environments. The proposed method consists to record and analyze the data describing the state and actions of the user during the travel in the virtual scene.

In this paper we describe a mobile phone based Augmented Reality application for 3D scene assembly. Augmented Reality on mobile phones extends the interaction capabilities on such handheld devices. It adds a 6 DOF isomorphic interaction technique for manipulating 3D content. We give details of an application that we believe to be the first where 3D content can be manipulated using both the movement of a camera tracked mobile phone and a traditional button interface as input for transformations. By centering the scene in a tangible marker space in front of the phone we provide a mean for bimanual interaction. We describe the implementation, the interaction techniques we have developed and initial user response to trying the application.

In the future ubiquitous computing living environment, humans will interact with computers (knowingly or unknowingly) any where by various means other than through the traditional desktop interface (e.g. keyboard and mouse). Interacting with a "smart" table could very well be one such probable scenario. In this paper, we outline and classify various possible techniques for interacting with the smart table under reasonable assumptions about the operating environment. We considered the primitive tasks of object selection, object manipulation and menu control. The classification should serve as a basis for experimenting, designing, selecting, composing and implementing a specific interaction technique for a given task to achieve high usability.

Coupling interaction resources is key to ubiquitous computing by permitting users to construct their own interactive spaces. In this article, we examine the requirements related to coupling and we propose a set of middleware techniques (I-AM and the Contextors infrastructure) to support coupling between the interaction resources of conventional workstations. We illustrate the application of these techniques with Ambient-Desktop, a desktop that complies to the look and feel of current graphical desktops extended with novel HCI features for addressing coupling.

We present an interaction technique which could be used to ease the well-known problem of browsing large interface surfaces---in particular web pages---on small screen devices. A prototype implementation is introduced and discussed, turning some of the traditional notions of direct manipulation inside-out.

Although coupling interaction resources is key to ubiquitous computing, this notion has been overlooked in previous studies. In this paper, we address this notion in a more systematic way by describing coupling as a finite state machine whose states should be maintained observable and controllable by users in a flexible and reliable manner. We illustrate the discussion with state of the art demonstrators as well as with I-AM, a middleware that supports the dynamic construction of multi-screen, multi-keyboard, and multi-pointer interactive spaces.

We show interaction possibilities and a graphical user interface for deformable, mobile devices. WIMP (windows, icons, mouse, pointer) interfaces are not practical on mobile devices. Gummi explores an alternative interaction technique based on bending of a handheld device.

Modeled on how humans use eye contact to engage one another, the interaction technique presented here enables users to effectively engage devices in ubiquitous computing contexts. Equipping devices to reciprocate eye contact enables users to effectively address devices, infer device attention, and target control actions.

A number of authors have studied the possibility of using handwriting or gesture as inputs. In most cases, the focus was either on building robust algorithms for recognition or identifying a set of assumed "natural" movements. Few authors have taken the analysis of actual movements as a starting point to build a set of precise and stable movements. This paper presents some arguments in favor of using results from human movement science to improve the elaboration of robust interfaces.

The XWeb project addresses the problem of interacting with services by means of a variety of interactive platforms. Interactive clients are provided on a variety of hardware/software platforms that can access and XWeb service. Creators of services need not be concerned with interactive techniques or devices. The cross platform problems of a network model of interaction, adaptation to screen size and supporting both speech and visual interfaces in the same model are addressed.

This paper describes our design and implementation of a computer augmented environment that allows users to smoothly interchange digital information among their portable computers, table and wall displays, and other physical objects. Supported by a camera-based object recognition system, users can easily integrate their portable computers with the pre-installed ones in the environment. Users can use displays projected on tables and walls as a spatially continuous extension of their portable computers. Using an interaction technique called hyperdragging, users can transfer information from one computer to another, by only knowing the physical relationship between them. We also provide a mechanism for attaching digital data to physical objects, such as a videotape or a document folder, to link physical and digital spaces.

We can touch things, and our senses tell us when our hands are touching something. But most computer input devices cannot detect when the user touches or releases the device or some portion of the device. Thus, adding touch sensors to input devices offers many possibilities for novel interaction techniques. We demonstrate the TouchTrackball and the Scrolling TouchMouse, which use unobtrusive capacitance sensors to detect contact from the users hand without requiring pressure or mechanical actuation of a switch. We further demonstrate how the capabilities of these devices can be matched to an implicit interaction technique, the On-Demand Interface, which uses the passive information captured by touch sensors to fade in or fade out portions of a display depending on what the user is doing; a second technique uses explicit, intentional interaction with touch sensors for enhanced scrolling. We present our new devices in the context of a simple tax- onomy of tactile input technologies. Finally, we discuss the properties of touch-sensing as an input channel in general.

Interest in pen-based user interfaces is growing rapidly. One potentially useful feature of pen-based user interfaces is gestures, that is, a mark or stroke that causes a command to execute. Unfortunately, it is difficult to design gestures that are easy 1) for computers to recognize and 2) for humans to learn and remember. To investigate these problems, we built a prototype tool typical fo those used for designing gesture sets. An experiment was then performed to gain insight into the gesture design process and to evaluate this style of tool. The experiment confirmed that gesture design is very difficult and suggested several ways in which current tools can be improved. The most important improvement is to make the tools more active and provide more guidance for designers. This paper describes the gesture design tool, the experiment, and its results.

This paper reports on Direct Combination, a new user interaction technique. Direct Combination may be viewed variously as: a systematic extension to Direct Manipulation; a concise navigational framework to help users find the operations they need; and as a framework to make a greater range and variety of operations available to the user, without overburdening user or interface designer. While Direct Combination may be seen as an extension of Direct Manipulation, it may also be applied to a wide range of user interaction styles, including even command line interfaces. Examples from various hypothetical systems and from an implemented system are presented. This paper argues that Direct Combination is applicable not just to problem seeking or design oriented domains (where the technique originated) but is generally applicable. A variety of new interaction styles for Direct Combination are presented. The generalisation of Direct Combination to the n-dimensional case is presented.

In this paper, we evaluate an interaction style based on visual and auditory rhythms. We describe this rhythmic interactor and experimentally compare it to the pull-down menus found in current graphical user interfaces. The main result is that, for short and medium length menus, sound-enhanced rhythmic menus are faster than pull-down menus.

A new input device called the PadMouse is described and evaluated. The PadMouse consists of a two degree-of-freedom touchpad mounted on a regular mouse base. Like the regular mouse, the PadMouse allows for spatial positioning tasks to be performed by moving the device on a planar surface. In addition, when coupled with an interaction technique we call Marking Keys, users can use the touchpad to activate modifiers and commands. An experiment shows that up to 32 modifiers/commands can be quickly and accurately activated using this technique, making it a viable device for the non-dominant hand in two-handed user interfaces. Other uses for the PadMouse and design alternatives are also discussed.

The metaDESK is a user interface platform demonstrating new interaction techniques we call "tangible user inter- faces." We explore the physical instantiation of interface elements from the graphical user interface paradigm, giving physical form to windows, icons, handles, menus, and controls. The design and implementation of the metaDESK display, sensor, and software architectures is discussed. A prototype application driving an interaction with geographi- cal space, Tangible Geospace, is presented to demonstrate these concepts.

The Go-Go immersive interaction technique uses the metaphor of interactively growing the user’s arm and non-linear mapping for reaching and manipulating distant objects. Unlike others, our technique allows for seamless direct manipulation of both nearby objects and those at a distance.

We propose an interaction technique for manipulating precise data or selecting one element from a large number of items. Although conventional graphical interaction tools like sliders cannot be used for selecting more items than the pixel size of the slider, we can specify more precise data by using the elastic slider based on the rubber-band metaphor, where a control object can be moved by pulling the object with a rubber-band between the object and the mouse cursor. The same technique can be applied to many graphical interface tools like scroll bars and drawing editors.

Pre-screen projection is a new interaction technique that allows a user to pan and zoom integrally through a scene simply by moving his or her head relative to the screen. The underlying concept is based on real-world visual perception, namely, the fact that a person’s view changes as the head moves. Pre-screen projection tracks a user’s head in three dimensions and alters the display on the screen relative to head position, giving a natural perspective effect in response to a user’s head movements. Specifically, projection of a virtual scene is calculated as if the scene were in front of the screen. As a result, the visible scene displayed on the physical screen expands (zooms) dramatically as a user moves nearer. This is analogous to the real world, where the nearer an object is, the more rapidly it visually expands as a person moves toward it. Further, with pre-screen projection a user can navigate (pan and zoom) around a scene integrally, as one unified activity, rather than performing panning and zooming as separate tasks. This paper describes the technique, the real-world metaphor on which it is conceptually based, issues involved in iterative development of the technique, and our approach to its empirical evaluation in a realistic application testbed.

We propose an interaction technique for editing splines that is aimed at professional graphic designers. These users do not take full advantage of existing spline editing software because their mental representations of drawings do not match the underlying conceptual model of the software. Although editing splines by specifying control points and tangents may be appropriate for engineers, graphic designers think more in terms of strokes, shapes, and gestures appropriate for editing drawings. Our interaction technique matches the latter model: curves can be edited by means of marks, similar to the way strokes are naturally overloaded when drawing on paper. We describe this interaction technique and the algorithms used for its implementation.

User Interface Management Systems have significantly reduced the effort required to build a user interface. However, current systems assume a set of standard "widgets" and make no provisions for defining new ones. This forces user interface designers to either do without or laboriously build new widgets with code. The Interface Object Graph is presented as a method for specifying and communicating the design of interaction objects or widgets. Two sample specifications are presented, one for a secure switch and the other for a two dimensional graphical browser.

Multimodal interaction combines input from multiple sensors such as pointing devices or speech recognition systems, in order to achieve more fluid and natural interaction. Two-handed interaction has been used recently to enrich graphical interaction. Building applications that use such combined interaction requires new software techniques and frameworks. Using additional devices means that user interface toolkits must be more flexible with regard to input devices and event types. The possibility of parallel interactions must also be taken into account, with consequences on the structure of toolkits. Finally, frameworks must be provided for the combination of events and status of several devices. This paper reports on the extensions we made to the direct manipulation interface toolkit Whizz in order to experiment two-handed interaction. These extensions range from structural adaptations of the toolkit to new techniques for specifying the time-dependent fusion of events.

This workshop will explore current and future applications, research areas, and interaction techniques that use audio in the user interface. The emphasis of the meeting will be on a “CHI perspective” of using speech and sound, in appropriate interactive contexts, where the audio channel can be exploited for the user’s benefit. The workshop will encompass user interface areas including: speech input and output, non-speech audio, data sonification, spatial audio, and access to audio databases. The workshop will not address topics such as computer music, hardware/systems support for audio, or signal processing as these areas are better addressed in other forums.

Computer-aided-design (CAD) systems are now used to de-sign all kinds of artifacts, from jet fighters to works of art. Amajor challenge in the design of a CAD system itself is theuserinterface(UI).DevelopingtheUIto aCAD systemraisesmyriad questions about input devices and techniques, displaydevices and techniques, and the details of the dialogue thatrelates the two. But these questions are ancillary to one cen-tralquestion: whatisthefundamentalnatureoftheinteractionbetween human and computerin thedesignprocess supportedbytheCAD system? Is thedesignactivityessentiallymanual,with the computer playing the role of passive tool, like a penor paintbrush? Or is the computer augmenting the human de-signer by actively restricting available design choices, or byplayingtheroleofcriticor“improver”? Ormaybetheintera c-tion paradigm is one of “interactive evolution,” in which th ecomputer is responsible for generating design alternatives,with the human merely choosing among choices suggestedby the machine. Or perhaps the computer performs the de-signprocess completelyautomatically,withafinalacceptancecheck being the only human contribution? The panelists willdescribe these different paradigms for human-computer co-operation in a set of related CAD systems and prototypes anddiscuss the conditions under which each paradigm might bemost useful.KEYWORDS: cooperative design, human-computer inter-action, interaction techniques, graphical user interfaces, de-sign automation, design methodologies, automated design ofgraphical displays, computer-aided design.

This study investigates dynamic 3D target acquisition. The focus is on the relative effect of specific perceptual cues. A novel technique is introduced and we report on an experiment that evaluates its effectiveness. There are two aspects to the new technique. First, in contrast to normal practice, the tracking symbol is a volume rather than a point. Second, the surface of this volume is semi-transparent, thereby affording occlusion cues during target acquisition. The experiment shows that the volumehcclusion cues were effective in both monocular and stereoscopic conditions. For some tasks where stereoscopic presentation is unavailable or infeasible, the new techniaue offers an effective alternative.

Magic Lens filters are a new user interface tool that combine an arbitrarily-shaped region with an operator that changes the view of objects viewed through that region. These tools can be interactively positioned over on-screen applications much as a magnifying glass is moved over a newspaper. They can be used to help the user understand various types of information, from text documents to scientific visualizations. Because these filters are movable and apply to only part of the screen, they have a number of advantages over traditional windowwide viewing modes: they employ an attractive metaphor based on physical lenses, show a modified view in the context of the original view, limit clutter to a small region, allow easy construction of visual macros and provide a uniform paradigm that can be extended across different types of information and applications. This paper describes these advantages in more detail and illustrates them with examples of magic lens filters in use over a variety of applications. CR

A grid-based technique to specify simple number independent layouts by example is described. This technique was originally developed to support layout specification for a parallel program visualization system but can be applied to aid other simple graphical layout tasks as well. The technique works by allowing the user to construct an example layout using a grid-based interaction technique. This example can then be generalized into a layout algorithm which can be applied to create layouts of any size. However, rather than simply choosing the “best” generalization, the system described here takes a synergistic approach. New examples from a set of alternative generalizations are presented to the user so that they can guide and control the generalization process. This provides more understanding and control of the generalization to be constructed from only one small example.