Kenrick Kin
Björn Hartmann
Abstract
We investigate multistroke marking menus for multitouch devices and we show that using two hands can improve performance. We present two new two-handed multistroke marking menu variants in which users either draw strokes with both hands simultaneously or alternate strokes between hands. In a pair of studies we find that using two hands simultaneously is faster than using a single, dominant-handed marking menu by 10--15%. Alternating strokes between hands doubles the number of accessible menu items for the same number of strokes, and is similar in performance to using a one-handed marking menu. We also examine how stroke direction affects performance. When using thumbs on an iPod Touch, drawing strokes upwards and inwards is faster than other directions. For two-handed simultaneous menus, stroke pairs that are bilaterally symmetric or share the same direction are fastest. We conclude with design guidelines and sample applications to aid multitouch application developers interested in using one- and two-handed marking menus.
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Index Terms
- Two-handed marking menus for multitouch devices
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Reviews
Franz J Kurfess
While it is intuitive that using both hands for interacting with touch-based devices offers more flexible ways to convey input, there are practical constraints that limit this two-handed touch interaction: the input area (for example, the iPad or iPhone's screen) must be of sufficient size; the device must be capable of distinguishing between up to ten points of contact (if all ten fingers are to be used); and the device must be placed on something unless it is held in such a way that only the thumbs are used for input. In this paper, the authors investigate two-handed marking menus for multi-touch devices, a particular method for two-handed touch-based interaction that relies on strokes: users draw a line (directional stroke) to select a menu item. For example, the swipe gesture used to activate touch-based input on Apple's iOS devices can be viewed as a directional horizontal stroke from left to right (although the corresponding menu would contain only a single entry). These strokes have a few attractive properties: they are scale-independent (size doesn't matter); they can be drawn in place (no need to move to a particular screen location); and they are eyes-free (looking at the screen isn't necessary). While evaluations on marking menus for one-handed mouse or stylus-based interactions have been done before, the authors examine their use with two hands-on touch-based devices: a small handheld one (iPod touch), and a larger touchpad used as an input device for a conventional computer (iGesture). They compare two types of two-handed interaction-two-handed simultaneous (2HS) and two-handed ordered (2HO)-with similar one-handed interactions. Since the 2HS technique allows a full overlap between hand motions, it should be the fastest; the 2HO technique allows some overlap (movement of the second hand starts before the movement of the first hand is finished). In addition, differences are to be expected between dominant-handed (the right one for most people) and nondominant-handed menus in single-handed cases. Overall, the authors' experiments with users validate their hypotheses; however, the two-handed modes require practice to achieve significant differences. While the results are interesting, I am not aware of any major applications of two-handed marking menus for touch-based mobile devices, and can think of only a few games that use two-handed input (the two thumbs in landscape mode). It will surely take many hands, and an application or game with a relatively intuitive mapping between the two-handed marking menus and the respective actions, to turn two-handed marking menus into a widely used input mode for touch-based mobile devices. Online Computing Reviews Service
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